I 




Glass J 

Book J 



copnuciiT DEPosm 



SELECTIONS FROM ^'<''' 
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



EDITED BY 

HENRY SEIDEL CANBY 

AND 

FREDERICK ERASTUS PIERCE 

Assistant Professors of English in Yale University 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1911 



e 5 



Copyright, 1911, bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published April, 1911 




©CI.A*^S(;856 



INTRODUCTION xv 



iSS3. 


Treasur^^ '^lan-' 


1885. 


Prince Otto. 


n 


A Child's Garden of Verses. 


it 


More New Arabian Nights. The Dynamiter. 


1886. 


Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 


1886. 


Kidnapped. 


1887. 


The Merry Men. 


IC 


Underwoods (verse). 


. " 


Memories and Portraits. 


1888. 


The Black Arrow. 


1889. 


The Master of Ballantrae. 


(( 


The Wrong Box. 


1890. 


Father Damien. 


1891. 


Ballads (verse). 


1892. 


Across the Plains. 


H 


The Wrecker. 


a 


Three Plays (Deacon Brodie, Beau Austin, Admiral 




Guinea). 


1893. 


Island Nights' Entertainments. 


(( 


Catriona (in America entitled David Balfour). 


1894. 


The Ebb Tide. 


1895. 


Vailima Letters. 


- 1896. 


Weir of Hermiston. 


1898. 


St. Ives. 


. 1899. 


Letters, Two Volumes. 


^ 1911. 


Letters, Four Volumes. 



IV.— BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following editions and biographical studies should be 
first consulted by those wishing to gain more knowledge of 
Stevenson than these Selections can give. 

EDITIONS 

The Thistle Edition, 26 vols. A complete collection of 
Stevenson's writings. 

The Biographical Edition, 32 vols. These volumes are of 
especial interest because of the introductions by Mrs. Stev- 
enson. 

The Scribner Popular Edition, 10 vols. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

i BIOGRAPHICAL 

Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, 2 vols. By Graham Bal- 
four. Published in the Thistle Edition but sold separately. 

The Vailima Letters, 2 vols. Edited by Sidney Colvin, 
published separately and in the Thistle Edition. 

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, 4 vols. Edited 
by Sidney Colvin. 

A Chronicle of Friendships, by Will H. Low. Especially 
valuable for its account of Stevenson's life in Paris and Fon- 
tainebleau. 

v.— STEVENSON THE WRITER 

Sargent's well-known portrait of the slender Stevenson, in 
his velveteen jacket, with cigarette in hand, while a whimsi- 
cal look softens the glow of his cavernous eyes, emphasises 
too strongly perhaps the Bohemian in Stevenson's nature, 
and yet suggests unforgettably his most characteristic traits. 
The air of one who seeks the romantic in life breathes from the 
figure; the serious eyes and the glance belong to a humourist 
who loves a world which both pains and amuses him; and 
*' artist" is as indelibly imprinted upon the whole as if it had 
been written in upon the picture. Romanticist, humourist, 
artist, — these, in truth, were the attributes of Robert Louis 
Stevenson. 

First, last, and always he was a romanticist in the good, 
broad sense of the word; that is, he was a lover of all that stirs 
the imagination. Romantic ages such as the fifteenth cen- 
tury in France; romantic men like the Stuart Pretenders; 
romantic moments like the terrible hours after a great crime, 
or a momentous resolution; — all these interested him and 
found their way into his books. Love, which makes the 
most romantic romance of them all, did not, strangely enough, 
appeal so strongly, perhaps because, as with many men who 
lack physical strength, it was the masculine in life which 
stirred his fancy. But he fed his mind upon everything else 
that was strange, or splendid, and his acts and works were 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

often moulded by romantic desires. He loved the sea better 
than the land; the mountains more than the plains; when he 
set out upon his exile it was to the uttermost islands of the 
Pacific; even when most discouraged he would not let life 
seem trivial, or otherwise than full of the possibilities of charm 
and wonder. Few men have been so sure of the eternal value 
of whatsoever frees the imagination from the commonplace, 
and so convinced that nothing pushes back the horizons, 
nothing stirs the heart like romance. 

Next to romance humour was the quality which Stevenson 
best understood, and this is not surprising, for the great ro- 
manticists have all been humourists. Humour is not the same 
as wit. Humour is a power which comes to kindly people who 
can grasp the truth about human nature, yet still retain their 
love for it. They see the inconsistencies, the incongruities, 
the weaknesses of mankind, and since they love their fellow- 
men can make these follies a cause of mirth, a reason for com- 
prehension and sympathy. Without humour a writer of ro- 
mances loses touch with human nature, and we, his readers, 
feel ill at ease in his world, where there is little humanity and 
only stage-laughs. 

This saving grace of humour was Stevenson's, but it did 
more than sweeten his romance; it made him a preacher. All 
great humourists are preachers. They cannot avoid preach- 
ing except by silence, for they have only to describe the world 
as they see it to give the liveliest perceptions of its errors and 
mistakes. And they are often the best of preachers because 
they are content to make clear the absurdity of error, leaving 
the remedy to time who takes care of proved absurdities. 
Indeed, as one reads certain essays in this volume, for example 
the throbbing Aes Triplex, where the writer wars upon all 
cowardly fear of death, Stevenson's preaching is so serious 
that one may easily overlook the humour underlying it. But 
Aes Triplex, like nearly all the rest, is fundamentally hu- 
morous. It was the work of a thinker who saw the man-flock 
scurrying hither and thither in trivial terror, though the grass 
was tender, the water sweet, and little time at best to enjoy 
them; a thinker who saw man, like a blind horse in a cider* 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

press, plodding on and on, unconscious that he never left his 
appointed rut. These sights filled him with mingled pity and 
mirth. He spoke out, and such fine preaching as is to be 
found in the essays of this volume resulted. But very rarely, 
and only when the tragic entered his stories, or when, as in 
his more sombre essays, his native cheerfulness fought for 
its right to exist, did Stevenson cease to be essentially humor- 
ous in his attitude toward the world. 

Such humourist's preaching differs, of course, in a very im- 
portant fashion from the usual pulpit variety. It is tolerant, 
it is never dogmatic. Stevenson could not be intolerant of 
other men's opinions for he saw but too clearly how fallible 
are all opinions; he could not be dogmatic for he knew that all 
programmes of conduct might lead somewhere or somehow to 
error. He pitied, or smiled at, the follies of the world in- 
stead of abusing them. One sees this in An Apology for 
Idlers, where he holds up for mirth the sordid individual who 
thinks that his own business is the only thing that matters, 
or in Aes Triplex, where he pictures Death creeping upon a 
life so shaken by fear of him as to be scarcely worth ending. 
One sees it also in work where he was not preaching; some- 
what grimly, for example, in his story. The Merry Men, where 
the conscience-stricken uncle is haunted by his fears; more 
lightly in Will o' the Mill, when the sluggish youth who gives 
to that story its title decides that it is better to be comfortable 
than in love. His travel-sketches, too, are full of this humor- 
ous spirit; his charming letters are alight with the keenest, but 
the most sympathetic perceptions of mortal folly, mortal weak- 
ness (his own as much as anybody's), and mortal shame. 
There have been far greater humourists than Stevenson, men, 
who, better than he, saw deeply, felt truly, and gave us human 
nature with the lovable and unlovable qualities of the flesh. 
But no writer in English of our period has done all these 
things so well for the readers of this generation. 

And, finally, R. L. S., as he liked to sign himself, was to 
the finger-tips an artist. The true artist, whether painter, 
musician, or writer of literature, is content only when his 
work is as true as he can make it to the conceptions shaped by 



INTRODUCTION xix 

his imagination'. He labours incessantly at what he calls his 
technique. Stevenson was a true artist, who never willingly 
and knowingly did less than his best. He wrote for money, as 
all artists should, since the need of making one's work desira- 
ble is the best preventive of morbid, unnatural, useless art; but 
he wrote, as he says in one of his letters, first of all for him- 
self. The results are to be seen in the dignity, depth, and sin- 
cerity of his books, but most of all in his style. Stevenson's 
style, which, at its finest, is of remarkable force and beauty, 
was the product of a determination to express his ideas in the 
best possible manner. It is like the glaze which the potter 
bakes upon his already modelled clay, or the colour and final 
form which the painter gives to his sketch for a picture. 
Stevenson's carefully chosen words, his delicately modulated 
sentences, the melodious rhythm of his paragraphs serve to 
express to perfection the nicety, or the profundity, or the 
beauty of his thought. His style, therefore, is the best result 
as well as the best evidence of a lifelong devotion to the high- 
est ideals of art. 

Stevenson is so much a part of our own generation that we 
cannot, even if it were desirable, label him, and place him 
upon his proper shelf in literary history. Nevertheless, it is 
already evident that he was a leader in some very definite 
tendencies of his times. 

The first of these was the swing toward romance. In the 
seventies and eighties, when R. L. S. began to write, science, 
much more than now, was affecting men's imaginations. Dis- 
coveries in physics, in chemistry, and in mechanics, most of all 
the then new theories of man's evolution from lower forms of 
life were emphasising the importance oi facts. Fiction speed- 
ily responded to this scientific movement. In France, Zola 
was writing his careful studies of the ills of humanity; in 
England, Hardy was pessimistically narrating the truth, as he 
saw it, of country life, and (for all realistic fiction is not either 
squalid or pessimistic) Trollope was pouring out matter-of- 
fact stories of amusing but very commonplace people. Ro- 
mance is a reaction against this realistic attitude. It is a pro- 

/ 



XX INTRODUCTION 

test that the soul needs to dream as well as to understand. 
Romance does not deny the ugly and the commonplace, it 
temporarily ignores them. Stevenson was unfamiliar neither 
with science nor with misery and pain, but in such books as 
Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and The Master of Ballantrae, 
such stories as The Sire de Maletroifs Door and A Lodging 
for the Night he led away from them into regions where a 
man could be a boy again, could let loose his fancy, and give 
his heart a chance to beat. In these narratives Stevenson 
headed the romantic reaction, which has given us a series of 
tales of adventure or strange situation to place beside the 
novels of scientific realism that have also been produced 
throughout our period. But Stevenson's followers have none 
of them equalled the master. Indeed, no writer, since the 
great romanticists of an earlier generation, has flung himself 
with Stevenson's ardour into the pursuit of romance. *' You 
just indulge the pleasure of your heart," he said of writing 
Treasure Island, *' just drive along as the words come and the 
pen will scratch!" 

Treasure Island is pure romance, like Ivanhoe, or As You 
Like It, but elsewhere Stevenson did more than revive ro- 
mance, he linked it to the scientific spirit of the time. Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for example, is conducted like an ex- 
periment in the new science of psychology; The Merry Men 
is first of all a romantic picture of the landsman's terror of 
the sea, but it is also a psychological study of a guilty imag- 
ination. And in such essays as Pulvis et Umbra those prob- 
lems with which scientists were wrestling are fearlessly handled 
by a romanticist, with admirable results. 

Stevenson reacts against opposing tendencies not only in 
his romance but also in his humour. He came from Scotland, 
where Puritanical dogmatism kept the tightest of grips upon 
belief and conscience. In his youth he broke away in agony 
from the dogma of his father's church, suffering and giving 
pain in order to be free. And in his manhood he not less de- 
cisively broke away from the writers who still dominated Eng- 
lish literature. The great preacher-essayists, Carlyle, Arnold, 
Ruskin, had made laws for conduct, for culture, for art. Stev- 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

enson, though never in dispute with them, presents the other 
side. Being humourist, he deprecates taking oneself too seri- 
ously; he points to the good things of God, the dawn, the for- 
est, friendship, love, and even a pipe of tobacco, which may be 
forgotten while men are pulling one another's ears; he leads 
the way to tolerance, and a cheerful determination to get the 
best from living. This is humour of the kind that Charles 
Lamb practised before the days of reform and modern science. 
It is most useful as an offset to the overpositive preachers of 
the middle of the century. 

In this, strangely enough, Stevenson is at one with those 
same scientists whose matter-of-fact theories of life had driven 
him to romance. His tolerance, his distrust of dogmatism 
would meet with their approval, for they experiment before 
they assert. But his distrust of dogma goes deeper than theirs. 
If he smiles at the philosopher or theologian who, from his 
little pin-head in the universe, declares that only thus or so 
shall a man's life be led or his soul be saved, his humour 
makes him smile no less at the pretensions of the scientist 
who deduces from experiments that man is a machine and life 
a chemical compound of dust. 

Stevenson's position and his influence as an artist are by no 
means so clear as his place in humour and romance. A great 
refiner of language, a perfecter of phrases even to the verge 
of affectation, it is true that he gave to English prose a solemn 
and beautiful music. It is true that he gave to the short story, 
which he among British authors of our period was the first 
to write with success, a dignity and a beauty which it had not 
been given since the days of Hawthorne and Poe. But, after 
all, the chief importance of Stevenson's art is to be sought else- 
where. It is chiefly valuable not so much for its possible 
influence as because, by means of it, form and expression were 
given to the romantic imaginings and the humorous thoughts 
of a very rare, very sweet, and very wise spirit embodied in 
one of the most lovable of men. 

H. S. C. 



LETTERS 



LETTERS 



STUDENT DAYS AT EDINBURGH^ 

To Alison Cunningham 

The following is the first of many letters to the admirable nurse 
whose care, during his ailing childhood, had done so much both to 
preserve Stevenson's life and awaken his love of tales and poetry, 
and of whom until his death he thought with the utmost constancy 
of affection. The letter bears no sign of date or place, but by the 
handwriting would seem to belong to this year. 

[1871?] 
My Dear Cummy, — I was greatly pleased by your let- 
ter in many ways. Of course, I was glad to hear from 
you; you know you and I have so many old stories be- 
tween us, that even if there was nothing else, even if 
there was not a very sincere respect and aflFection, we 

^ Stevenson's published correspondence has until recently been 
chiefly contained in three volumes, Letters, vols. I and II, and the 
Vailima Letters. The latter comprises all those sent from Samoa, 
during the author's residence there, to Sidney Colvin. As mail steam- 
ers are rare in the Pacific islands, Stevenson wrote these letters to 
Colvin in the form of a journal, sending out long consignments at rare 
intervals. They were written after he had become famous and when 
he knew that much of his personal MSS. would eventually be pub- 
lished; hence the contents of the Vailima volume are more polished 
and less frankly informal, as a whole, than the rest. The remaining 
letters, including those sent from Vailima to other friends than Colvin, 
were published chronologically in the two volumes already referred to. 
Our selections include extracts from all three volumes, arranged in 
the order in which they were written, only those dating from Samoa 
and addressed to Sidney Colvin being from the Vailima Letters. 
A new and revised edition of Stevenson ^s letters has just appeared 
in four volumes. All the letters are arranged in chronological order, 
and these new volumes will be the definitive and complete form of 
the collection. 



4 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

should always be glad to pass a nod. I say "even if 

there was not." But you know right well there is. Do 

not suppose that I shall ever forget those long, bitter 

nights, when I coughed and coughed and was so unhappy, 

and you were so patient and loving with a poor, sick 

child. Indeed, Gummy, I wish I might become a man 

worth talking of, if it were only that you should not have 

thrown away your pains. 

Happily, it is not the result of our acts that makes 

them brave and noble, but the acts themselves and the 

unselfish love that moved us to do them. "Inasmuch 

as you have done it unto one of the least of these." My 

dear old nurse, and you know there is nothing a man 

can say nearer his heart except his mother or his wife — 

my dear old nurse, God will make good to you all the 

good that you have done, and mercifully forgive you all 

the evil. And next time when the spring comes round, 

and everything is beginning once again, if you should 

happen to think that you might have had a child of 

your own, and that it was hard you should have spent so 

many years taking care of some one else^s prodigal, just 

you think this — you have been for a great deal in my 

life; you have made much that there is in me, just as 

surely as if you had conceived me; and there are sons 

who are more ungrateful to their own mothers than I am 

to you. For I am not ungrateful, my dear Gummy, and 

it is with a very sincere emotion that I write myself your 

little boy, 

Louis. 



LETTERS 5 

FIRST JOURNEY TO AMERICA 

To Edmund Gosse^ 

With reference to the "term of reproach," it must be explained 
that Mr. Gosse, who now signs with only one initial, used in these 
days to sign with two, E. W. G. The nickname Weg was fastened 
on him by Stevenson, partly under a false impression as to the order 
of these initials, partly in friendly derision of a passing fit of lameness, 
which called up the memory of Silas Wegg, the immortal literary gen- 
tleman *'with a wooden leg" of Our Mutual Friend, 

17 Heriot Row/^ Edinburgh [July 29, 1879]. 
My Dear Gosse, — Yours was delicious; you are a 
young person of wit; one of the last of them; wit being 
quite out of date, and humour conjfined to the Scotch 
Church and the Spectator in unconscious survival. You 
will probably be glad to hear that I am up again in 
the world; I have breathed again, and had a frolic on 
the strength of it. The frolic was yesterday, Sawbath; 
the scene, the Royal Hotel, Bathgate; I went there with 
a humorous friend to lunch. The maid soon showed 
herself a lass of character. She was looking out of win- 
dow. On being asked what she was after, "I 'm look- 
in' for my lad,'' says she. " Is that him ? " " Weel, I Ve 
been lookin' for him a' my life, and I 've never seen him 
yet," was the response. I wrote her some verses in the 
vernacular; she read them. "They 're no bad for a be- 
ginner," said she. The landlord's daughter. Miss Stewart, 
was present in oil colour; so I wrote her a declaration 
in verse, and sent it by the handmaid. She (Miss S.) 
was present on the stair to witness our departure, in a 

^ See page viii. 

2 The home of Stevenson's parents, where most of his boyhood 
had been passed. This letter was written less than a fortnight 
before the author's first voyage to America. 



6 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

warm, suffused condition. Damn it, Gosse, you needn't 
suppose that you 're the only poet in the world. 

Your statement about your initials, it will be seen, I pass 
over in contempt and silence. When once I have made up 
my mind, let me tell you, sir, there lives no pock-pudding 
who can change it. Your anger I defy. Your unmanly 
reference to a well-known statesman I puff from me, sir, 
like so much vapour. Weg is your name; Weg. W E G. 

My enthusiasm has kind of dropped from me. I 
envy you your wife, your home, your child — I was 
going to say your cat. There would be cats in my 
home too if I could but get it. I may seem to you 
"the impersonation of life," but my life is the imper- 
sonation of waiting, and that 's a poor creature. God 
help us all, and the deil be kind to the hindmost! Upon 
my word, we are a brave, cheery crew, we human be- 
ings, and my admiration increases daily — primarily for 
myself, but by a roundabout process for the whole 
crowd; for I dare say they have all their poor little se- 
crets and anxieties. And here am I, for instance, writ- 
ing to you as if you were in the seventh heaven, and 
yet I know you are in a sad anxiety yourself. I hope 
earnestly it will soon be over, and a fine pink Gosse 
sprawling in a tub, and a mother in the best of health 
and spirits, glad and tired, and with another interest in 
life. Man, you are out of the trouble when this is 
through. A first child is a rival, but a second is only 
a rival to the first; and the husband stands his ground 
and may keep married all his life — a consummation 
heartily to be desired. Good-bye, Gosse. Write me a 
witty letter with good news of the mistress. 

R. L. S. 



LETTERS 



To Edmund Gosse 

A poetical counterpart to this letter will be found in the piece be- 
ginning "Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert," which was 
composed at the same time and is printed in Underwoods, p. 30. 

San Francisco, Cal., April 16 [1880].^ 
My Dear Gosse, — You have not answered my last; 
and I know you will repent when you hear how near 
I have been to another world. For about six weeks' I 
have been in utter doubt; it was a toss-up for life or 
death all that time; but I won the toss, sir, and Hades 
went off once more discomfited. This is not the first 
time, nor will it be the last, that I have a friendly game 
with that gentleman. I know he will end by cleaning 
me out; but the rogue is insidious, and the habit of that 
sort of gambling seems to be a part of my nature; it was, 
I suspect, too much indulged in youth; break your chil- 
dren of this tendency, my dear Gosse, from the first. It 
is, when once formed, a habit more fatal than opium 
— I speak, as St. Paul says, like a fool. I have been 
very very sick; on the verge of a galloping consumption, 
cold sweats, prostrating attacks of cough, sinking fits in 
which I lost the power of speech, fever, and all the ugli- 
est circumstances of the disease; and I have cause to 
bless God, my w^ife that is to be, and one Dr. Bamford 
(a name the Muse repels), that I have come out of all 
this, and got my feet once more upon a little hilltop, 
with a fair prospect of life and some new desire of liv- 
ing. Yet I did not wish to die, heither; only I felt 
unable to go on farther with that rough horseplay of 
human life : a man must be pretty w^ell to take the busi- 
ness in good part. Yet I felt all the time that I had 
done nothing to entitle me to an honourable discharge; 

^ Written about a month before Stevenson's marriage. 



8 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

that I had taken up many obligations and begun many 
friendships which I had no right to put away from me; 
and that for me to die was to play the cur and slink- 
ing sybarite, and desert the colours on the eve of the 
decisive fight. Of course I have done no work for I 
do not know how long; and here you can triumph. 1 
have been reduced to writing verses for amusement. 
A fact. The whirligig of time brings in its revenges, 
after all. But I ^11 have them buried with me, I think, 
for I have not the heart to burn them while I live. 
Do write. I shall go to the mountains as soon as the 
weather clears; on the way thither, I marry myself; 
then I set up my family altar among the pinewoods, 
3000 feet, sir, from the disputatious sea. — I am, dear 
Weg, most truly yours, 

R. L. S. 

DAVOS IN SWITZERLAND 

To Charles Baxter^ 

[Chalet am Stein], Davos, December 5, 1881. 

My Dear Charles, — We have been in miserable case 
here; my wife worse and worse; and now sent away 
with Lloyd ^ for sick-nurse, I not being allowed to go 
down. I do not know what is to become of us; and 
you may imagine how rotten I have been feeling, and 
feel now, alone with my weasel-dog and my German 
maid, on the top of a hill here, heavy mist and thin snow 
all about me, and the devil to pay in general. I don^t 
care so much for solitude as I used to; results, I sup- 
pose, of marriage. 

Pray write me something cheery. A little Edinburgh 

^ A friend of the author's student days. Stevenson speaks very 
highly of his tact and judgment as an adviser. 

2 Lloyd Osbourne, his step-son, to whom he was much attached. 



LETTERS 9 

gossip, in Heaven^s name. Ah! what would I not give 
to steal this evening with you through the big, echoing 
college archway, and away south under the street lamps, 
and away to dear Brash^s,^ now defunct! But the old 
time is dead also, never, never to revive. It was a sad 
time too, but so gay and so hopeful, and we had such 
sport w^ith all our low spirits and all our distresses, that it 
looks like a kind of lamplit fairyland behind me. O for 
ten Edinburgh minutes — sixpence between us, and the 
ever-glorious Lothian Road, or dear mysterious Leith 
Walk! But here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling; 
here in this strange place, whose very strangeness would 
have been heaven to him then; and aspires, yes, C. B., 
with tears, after the past. See what comes of being 
left alone. Do you remember Brash ? the sheet of glass 
that we followed along George Street? Gran ton? the 
night at Bonny mainhead? the compass near the sign 
of the Twinkling Eye ? the night I lay on the pavement 
in misery? 

I swear it by the eternal sky 
Johnson — nor Thomson — ne'er shall die I 

Yet I fancy they are dead too; dead like Brash. 

R. L. S. 

^ Peter Brash, an innkeeper of Edinburgh, the subject of many of 
Stevenson's early jokes. 



10 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 



SOUTHERN FRANCE 

To W. E. Henley^ 

The "new dictionary" means, of course, the first instalments of the 
great Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, edited by Dr. J. 
A. H. Murray. 

Hyeres ^ [June, 1883]. 

Dear Lad, — I was delighted to hear the good news 
about . Bravo, he goes uphill fast. Let him be- 
ware of vanity, and he will go higher; let him be still 
discontented, and let him (if it might be) see the mer- 
its and not the faults of his rivals, and he may swarm 
at last to the topgallant. There is no other way. Ad- 
miration is the only road to excellence; and the critical 
spirit kills, but envy and injustice are putrefaction on 
its feet. 

Thus far the moralist. The eager author now begs to 
know whether you may have got the other Whistles, 
and whether a fresh proof is to be taken; also whether 
in that case the dedication should not be printed there- 
with; Bulk Delights Publishers (original aphorism; to 
be said sixteen times in succession as a test of sobriety). 

Your wild and ravening commands were received; 
but cannot be obeyed. And anyway, I do assure you I 
am getting better every day; and if the weather would 
but turn, I should soon be observed to walk in horn- 
pipes. Truly I am on the mend. I am still very careful. 
I have the new dictionary; a joy, a thing of beauty, and 
— bulk. I shall be raked i' the mools^ before it 's fin- 
ished; that is the only pity; but meanwhile I sing. 

I beg to inform you that I, Robert Louis Stevenson, 

^ See page viii. 

' Stevenson's home for nine months during his two years' residence 
in Southern France after leaving Davos. 
^ Buried under the earth. 



LETTERS ' 11 

author of Brashiana} and other works, am merely be- 
ginning to commence to prepare to make a first start 
at trying to understand my profession. O the height 
and depth of novelty and worth in any art! and O that 
I am privileged to swim and shoulder through such 
oceans ! Could one get out of sight of land — all in the 
blue? Alas not, being anchored here in flesh, and the 
bonds of logic being still about us. 

But what a great space and a great air there is in these 
small shallows where alone we venture ! and how new 
each sight, squall, calm, or sunrise! An art is a fine 
fortune, a palace in a park, a band of music, health, 
and physical beauty; all but love — to any worthy prac- 
tiser. I sleep upon my art for a pillow; I waken in my 
art; I am unready for death, because I hate to leave 
it. I love my wife, I do not know how much, nor 
can, nor shall, unless I lost her; but while I can con- 
ceive my being widowed, I refuse the offering of life with- 
out my art. I am not but in my art; it is me; I am 
the body of it merely. 

And yet I produce nothing, am the author of Brashi" 
ana and other works: tiddy-iddity — as if the works one 
wrote were anything but prentice's experiments. Dear 
reader, I deceive you with husks, the real works and all 
the pleasure are still mine and incommunicable. After 
this break in my work, beginning to return to it, as 
from light sleep, I wax exclamatory, as you see. 

Sursum Corda:^ 
Heave ahead: 
Here 's luck. 
Art and Blue Heaven, 
April and God's Larks. 
Green reeds and the sky-scattering river. 
A stately music. 

Enter God ! R. L. S. 

^ Writings on Brash. 2 Upward with our hearts, i. e., be cheerful. 



12 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Ay, but you know, until a man can write that " Enter 
God/' he has made no art! None! Come, let us take 
counsel together and make some! 



To W. H. Low^ 

Manhattan, mentioned below, is the name of a short-lived New 
York magazine, the editor of which had asked through Mr. Low for 
a contribution from R. L. S. 

La Solitude,^ Hyeres, October [1883]. 

My Dear Low, — . . . Some day or other, in Cassell's 
Magazine of Art, you will see a paper which will inter- 
est you, and where your name appears. It is called 
" Fontainebleau : Village Communities of Artists,^^ and 
the signature of R. L. Stevenson will be found annexed.^ 

Please tell the editor of Manhattan the following se- 
crets for me: 1^^, That I am a beast; 2nd, that I owe 
him a letter; Srd, that I have lost his, and cannot recall 
either his name or address; 4:th, that I am very deep in 
engagements, which my absurd health makes it hard for 
me to overtake; but 5th, that I will bear him in mind; 
Qth and last, that I am a brute. 

My address is still the same, and I live in a mo^st 
sweet corner of the universe, sea and fine hills before 
me, and a rich, variegated plain; and at my back a 
craggy hill, loaded with vast feudal ruins. I am very 
quiet; a person passing by my door half startles me; 
but I enjoy the most aromatic airs, and at night the 
most wonderful view into a moonlit garden. By day 
this garden fades into nothing, overpowered by its sur- 

^ American painter and illustrator. Stevenson and he had been 
good friends since the days they spent together in Paris and the 
forest of Fontainebleau, an account of which is given in Low's 
A Chronicle of Friendships. 

* The name of Stevenson's cottage at Hyeres. 

3 Published May, June, 1884. 



LETTERS 13 

roundings and the luminous distance; but at night and 
when the moon is out, that garden, the arbour, the flight 
of stairs that mount the artificial hillock, the plumed 
blue gum-trees that hang trembling, become the very 
skirts of Paradise. Angels I know frequent it; and it 
thrills all night with the thrills of silence. Damn that 
garden; — end by day it is gone. 

Continue to testify boldly against realism. Down with 
Dagon, the fish god! ^ All art swings down towards 
imitation, in these days, fatally. But the man who 
loves art with wisdom sees the joke; it is the lustful 
that tremble and respect her ladyship; but the honest 
and romantic lovers of the Muse can see a joke and sit 
down to laugh with Apollo. 

The prospect of your return to Europe is very agree- 
able; and I was pleased by what you said about your 
parents. One of my oldest friends died recently, and 
this has given me new thoughts of death.^ Up to now 
I had rather thought of him as a mere personal enemy 
of my own; but now that I see him hunting after my 
friends, he looks altogether darker. My own father is 
not well; and Henley, of whom you must have heard 
me speak, is in a questionable state of health. These 
things are very solemn, and take some of the colour out 
of life. It is a great thing, after all, to be a man of rea- 
sonable honour and kindness. Do you remember once 
consulting me in Paris whether you had not better sac- 
rifice honesty to art; and how, after much confabula- 
tion, we agreed that your art would suffer if you did ? 
We decided better than we knew. In this strange welter 
where we live, all hangs together by a million filaments; 

^ Used by Stevenson to denote unimaginative art and pedantry. 
See his letter to Colvin, July 28, 1879. 

^ Walter Ferrier, a comrade of Stevenson's Edinburgh days, and 
the first of his close friends to be removed by death. His memory 
is preserved in the essay, Old Mortality j 1884. 



14 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and to do reasonably well by others, is the first prereq- 
uisite of art. Art is a virtue; and if I were the man i 
should be, my art would rise in the proportion of my lite. 
If YOU were privileged to give some happiness to your 
parents, I know your art will gain by it. By God, it will! 
Sic subscribitur,' R. L. S. 



To W. H. Low 

The paper referred to at the beginning of the second paragraph 
is one on R. L. S. in the Century Magazine the fi^^* seriously 
critical notice, says Mr. Low, which appeared of him in the States. 

[Chalet La Solitude, Hyeres, Oct. 23, 1883.] 
My Dear 'Low,— C'est d'un bon camarade,^ and I am 
much obliged to you for your two letters and the en- 
closure. Times are a lityle changed with all of us since 
the ever memorable days of Lavenue:^ hallowed be his 
name! hallowed his old Fleury!-of which you did 
not see— I think— as I did— the glorious apotheosis: ad- 
vanced on a Tuesday to three francs, on the Thursday 
to six, and on Friday swept off, holus bolus, for the 
proprietor's private consumption. Well, we had the 
start of that proprietor. Many a good bottle came our 
way, and was, I think, worthily made welcome. 

I am pleased that Mr. Gilder^ should like my litera- 
ture ; and I ask you particularly to thank Mr Bunner 
(have I the name right?) for his notice, which was ot 
that friendly, headlong sort that really pleases an author 
like what the French call a "shake-hands." It pleased 

> The reference is to himself. » Thus subscribing. 

:i* ltTr;\t1u^raT?JSe'Mont Pamasse district of Paris; a 
^"'TW. &lTer%r mJny years editor of The Century Magazine. 



LETTERS 15 

me the more coming from the States, where I have met 
not much recognition, save from the buccaneers, and 
above all from pirates who misspell my name. I saw 
my book advertised in a number of the Critic as the 
work of one R. L. Stephenson; and, I own, I boiled. 
It is so easy to know the name of a man whose book 
you have stolen; for there it is, at full length, on the 
title-page of your booty. But no, damn him, not he! 
He calls me Stephenson. These woes I only refer to by 
the way, as they set a higher value on the Century notice. 
I am now a person with an established ill-health — a 
wife — a dog possessed with an evil, a Gadarene spirit — 
a chalet on a hill, looking out over the Mediterranean — 
a certain reputation — and very obscure finances. Oth- 
erwise, very much the same, I guess; and were a bottle 
of Fleury a thing to be obtained, capable of developing 
theories along with a fit spirit even as of yore. Yet I 
now draw near to the Middle Ages; nearly three years 
ago, that fatal Thirty struck; and yet the great work 
is not yet done — not yet even conceived. But so, as 
one goes on, the wood seems to thicken, the footpath to 
narrow, and the House Beautiful on the hilFs summit 
to draw further and further away. We learn, indeed, to 
use our means; but only to learn, along with it, the 
paralysing knowledge that these means are only applica- 
ble to two or three poor commonplace motives. Eight 
years ago, if I could have slung ink as I can now, I 
should have thought myself well on the road after 
Shakespeare; and now — I find I have only got a pair 
of walking-shoes and not yet begun to travel. And art 
is still away there on the mountain summit. But I 
need not continue; for, of course, this is your story just 
as much as it is mine; and, strange to think, it was 
Shakespeare's too, and Beethoven's, and Phidias's. It 
is a blessed thing that, in this forest of art, we can pur- 



16 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

sue our wood-lice and sparrows, and not catch them, 
with almost the same fervour of exhilaration as that 
with which Sophocles hunted and brought down the 
Mastodon. 
Tell me something of your work, and your wite — 

Mv dear fellow, I am yours ever, 

R. L. Stevenson. 

My wife oegs to be remembered to both of you; I 
cannot say as much for my dog, who has never seen 
you, but he would like, on general principles, to bite you. 



To Me. Dick 



This correspondent was for many years head clerk and confidential 
assistant in the family firm at Edinburgh. 

La Solitude, Hyeres, Var, 12th March, 1884. 
My Dear Mr. Dick,— I have been a great while owmg 
you a letter, but I am not without excuses, as you have 
heard. I overworked to get a piece of work finished 
before I had my holiday, thinking to enjoy it more; and 
instead of that, the machinery near hand came sundry m 
my hands! like Murdie's uniform. However, I am now, 
I think, in a fair way of recovery; I think I was made, 
what there is of me, of whipcord and thorn-switches; 
surely I am tough! But I fancy I shall not overdrive 
again, or not so long. It is my theory that work is 
highly beneficial, but that it should, if possible, and cer- 
tainly for such partially broken-down instruments as the 
thing I call my body, be taken in batches, with a clear 
break and breathing space between. I always do vary 
my work, laying one thing aside to take up another, not 
merely because I believe it rests the brain, but because 1 
have found it most beneficial to the result. Reading, 



LETTERS 17 

Bacon says, makes a full man, but what makes me full 
on any subject is to banish it for a time from all my 
thoughts. However, what I now propose is, out of every 
quarter, to work two months and rest the third. I 
believe I shall get more done, as I generally m8 :a:e, 
on my present scheme, to have four months' imp rent 
illness and two of imperfect health — one before one 
after, I break down. This, at least, is not an econo a r 1 
division of the year. 

I re-read the other day that heart-breaking book, the 
Life of Scott. One should read such works now and 
then, but O, not often. As I live, I feel more and more 
that literature should be cheerful and brave-spirited, 
even if it cannot be made beautiful and pious and he- 
roic. We wish it to be a green place; the Waverley 
Novels are better to re-read than the over-true Life, fine 
as dear Sir Walter was. The Bible, in most parts, is a 
cheerful book; it is our little piping theologies, tracts, 
and sermons that are dull and dowie; ^ and even the 
Shorter Catechism, which is scarcely a work of conso- 
lation, opens with the best and shortest and completest 
sermon ever written — upon Man's chief end. — Believe 
me, my dear Mr. Dick, very sincerely yours, 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 

P. S. — You see I have changed my hand. I was 
threatened apparently with scrivener's cramp, and at 
any rate had got to write so small that the revisal of 
my MS. tried my eyes, hence my signature alone re- 
mains upon the old model; for it appears that if I 
changed that, I should be cut off from my ^Wivers."^ 

R. L. S. 

^ Doleful. * Means of living. 



18 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 



BOURNEMOUTH, ENGLAND 

To W. E. Henley 

There is no certain clue to the date of the following ; neither has ft 
been possible to make sure what was the enclosure mentioned. The 
spticial illness referred to seems to be that of the preceding May at 
Ky^res. 

[Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October, 1884?] 
Dear Boy, — I trust this finds you well; it leaves me 
so-so. The weather is so cold that I must stick to bed, 
which is rotten and tedious, but can't be helped. 

I find in the blotting-book the enclosed, which I 
wrote to you the eve of my blood.^ Is it not strange? 
That night, when I naturally thought I was coopered, 
the thought of it was much in my mind ; I thought it 
had gone; and I thought what a strange prophecy I had 
made in jest, and how it was indeed like to be the end 
of many letters. But I have written a good few since, 
and the spell is broken. I am just as pleased, for I 
earnestly desire to live. This pleasant middle age into 
whose port we are steering is quite to my fancy. I 
would cast anchor here, and go ashore for twenty years, 
and see the manners of the place. Youth was a great 
time, but somewhat fussy. Now in middle age (bar 
lucre) all seems mighty placid. It likes me; I spy a 
little bright cafe in one corner of the port, in front of 
which I now propose we should sit down. There is 
just enough of the bustle of the harbour and no more; 
and the ships are close in, regarding us with stern-win- 
dows — the ships that bring deals from Norway and par- 
rots from the Indies. Let us sit down here for twenty 
years, with a packet of tobacco and a drink, and talk of 

* That is, of a recent attack of hemorrhage. 



LETTERS 19 

art and women. By and by, the whole city will sink, 
and the ships too, and the table, and we also; but we 
shall have sat for twenty years and had a fine talk; and 
by that time, who knows? exhausted the subject. 

I send you a book which (or I am mistook) will please 
you; it pleased me. But I do desire a book of advent- 
ure — a romance — and no man will get or write me one. 
Dumas I have read and re-read too often; Scott, too, 
and I am short. I want to hear swords clash. I want 
a book to begin in a good way; a book, I guess, like 
Treasure Island, alas! which I have never read, and can- 
not though I live to ninety. I would God that some 
one else had written it! By all that I can learn, it is the 
very book for my complaint. I like the way I hear it 
opens; and they tell me John Silver is good fun. And 
to me it is, and must ever be, a dream unrealised, a book 
unwritten. O my sighings after romance, or even Skel- 
tery,^ and O! the weary age which will produce me 
neither! 

CHAPTER I 

The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The 
single horseman, cloaked and booted, who pursued his 
way across Willesden Common, had not met a traveller, 
when the sound of wheels 

CHAPTER I 

"Yes, sir,'^ said the old pilot, "she must have dropped 
into the bay a little afore dawn. A queer craft she 
looks.^^ 

"She shows no colours," returned the young gentle- 
man, musingly. 

^ Cheap and sensational romance, so-called from Shell's Juvenile 
Drama, a series of melodramatic plays for a toy theatre, which made 
a great impression on Stevenson as a boy. See his A Penny Plain 
and Twopence Coloured. 



20 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

"They 're a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark/' 
resumed the old salt. "We shall soon know more of 
her." 

"Ay/' replied the young gentleman called Mark, 
"and here, Mr. Seadrift, comes your sweet daughter 
Nancy tripping down the cliff." 

"God bless her kind heart, sir," ejaculated old Sea- 
drift. 

CHAPTER I 

The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to 
the top of a great house in the Isle St. Louis to make a 
will; and now, his duties finished, wrapped in a warm 
roquelaure^ and with a lantern swinging from one hand, 
he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Lit- 
tle did he think what strange adventures were to befall 
him! 

That is how stories should begin. And I am offered 
HUSKS instead. 

What should be: What is: 

The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy. 

Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece. 

Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel. 

xi. L. S. 



To Edmund Gosse 

Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan, 2nd, 1886. 
My Dear Gosse, — Thank you for your letter, so in- 
teresting to my vanity. There is a review in the St. 
James's, which, as it seems to hold somewhat of your 
opinions, and is besides written with a pen and not a 

^ An old-fashioned type of cloak once used in France. 



LETTERS 21 

poker, we think may possibly be yours. The Prince^ 
has done fairly well in spite of the reviews, which have 
been bad: he was, as you doubtless saw, well slated in 
the Saturday; one paper received it as a child's story; an- 
other (picture my agony) described it as a " Gilbert com- 
edy/^ It was amusing to see the race between me and 
Justin M'Carthy:^ the Milesian^ has won by a length. 

That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and 
you take longer over your work, and it will not be so 
successful as if you had aimed low and rushed it. What 
the public likes is work (of any kind) a little loosely exe- 
cuted; so long as it is a little wordy, a little slack, a little 
dim and knotless, the dear public likes it; it should (if 
possible) be a little dull into the bargain. I know that 
good work sometimes hits; but, with my hand on my 
heart, I think it is by an accident. And I know also 
that good work must succeed at last; but that is not the 
doing of the public; they are only shamed into silence 
or affectation. I do not write for the public; I do write 
for money, a nobler deity; and most of all for myself, 
not perhaps any more noble, but both more intelligent 
and nearer home. 

Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of 
the beast whom we feed. What he likes is the news- 
paper; and to me the press is the mouth of a sewer, 
where lying is professed as from an university chair, and 
everything prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, 
finds its abode and pulpit. I do not like mankind; but 
men, and not all of these — and fewer women. As for 
respecting the race, and, above all, that fatuous rabble 
of burgesses called ^^the public," God save me from 
such irreligion! — that way lies disgrace and dishonour. 

^ Prince Otto. 

2 Irish novelist and political leader. 

^ A name sometimes applied to the Irish. 



22 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

There must be something wrong in me, or I would not 
be popular. 

This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and 
permanent opinion. Not much, I think. As for the 
art that we practise, I have never been able to see why- 
its professors should be respected. They chose the 
primrose path; when they found it was not all prim- 
roses, but some of it brambly, and much of it uphill, 
they began to think and to speak of themselves as holy 
martyrs. But a man is never martyred in any honest 
sense in the pursuit of his pleasure; and delirium tre- 
mens has more of the honour of the cross. We were 
full of the pride of life, and chose, like prostitutes, to 
live by a pleasure. We should be paid if we give the 
pleasure we pretend to give; but why should we be hon- 
oured ? 

I hope some day you and Mrs. Gosse will come for a 
Sunday; but we must wait till I am able to see people. 
I am very full of Jenkin^s^ life; it is painful, yet very 
pleasant, to dig into the past of a dead friend, and find 
him, at every spadeful, shine brighter. I own, as I 
read, I wonder more and more why he should have 
taken me to be a friend. He had many and obvious 
faults upon the face of him; the heart was pure gold. I 
feel it little pain to have lost him, for it is a loss in which 
I cannot believe; I take it, against reason, for an ab- 
sence; if not to-day, then to-morrow, I still fancy I shall 
see him in the door; and then, now when I know him 
better, how glad a meeting! Yes, if I could believe in 
the immortality business, the world would indeed be too 
good to be true; but we were put here to do what ser- 
vice we can, for honour and not for hire: the sods cover 

^ Fleeming Jenkin, Professor of Engineering at Edinburgh, where 
he and Stevenson first formed their hfe-long friendship. He had 
been dead about six months when this letter was written. Steven- 
son has preserved his memory in the Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, 



LETTERS 23 

us, and the worm that never dies, the conscience, sleeps 
well at last; these are the wages, besides what we receive 
so lavishly day by day; and they are enough for a man 
who knows his own frailty and sees all things in the 
proportion of reality. The soul of piety was killed long 
ago by that idea of reward. Nor is happiness, whether 
eternal or temporal, the reward that mankind seeks. 
Happinesses are but his wayside campings; his soul is in 
the journey; he was born for the struggle, and only tastes 
his life in eflFort and on the condition that he is opposed. 
How, then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious, 
so made up of discontent and aspiration, and such noble 
and uneasy passions — how can he be rewarded but by 
rest? I would not say it aloud; for man's cherished be- 
lief is that he loves that happiness which he continually 
spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior 
happiness exactly fits him. He does not require to stop 
and taste it; he can be about the rugged and bitter busi- 
ness where his heart lies; and yet he can tell himself this 
fairy tale of an eternal tea-party, and enjoy the notion that 
he is both himself and something else; and that his friends 
will yet meet him, all ironed out and emasculate, and 
still be lovable, — as if love did not live in the faults of 
the beloved only, and draw its breath in an unbroken 
round of forgiveness! But the truth is, we must fight 
until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet for 
mankind but complete resumption into — what? — God, 
let us say — when all these desperate tricks will lie spell- 
bound at last. 

Here came my dinner and cut this sermon short — 
excusez. R. L. S. 



24 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

SECOND JOURNEY TO AMERICA 

To William Archer 

In early days in Paris, Stevenson's chivalrous feelings were once 
shocked by the scene in the Demi- Monde of Dumas fits where Suzanne 
d'Auge is trapped by Olivier de Jalin. His correspondent had asked 
to know exactly what was the sequel. 

[Saranac Lake, Springy 1888?] 
My Dear Archer, — It happened thus. I came forth 
from that performance in a breathing heat of indigna- 
tion. (Mind, at this distance of time and with my in- 
creased knowledge, I admit there is a problem in the 
piece; but I saw none then, except a problem in brutal- 
ity; and I still consider the problem in that case not 
established.) On my way down the Frangais^ stairs, I 
trod on an old gentleman's toes, whereupon, with that 
suavity that so well becomes me, I turned about to apol- 
ogise, and on the instant, repenting me of that intention, 
stopped the apology midway, and added something in 
French to this effect: No, you are one of the laches^ who 
have been applauding that piece. I retract my apology. 
Said the old Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, 
and with a smile that was truly heavenly in temperance, 
irony, good nature, and knowledge of the world, "Ah, 
monsieur, vous etes bien jeune!" ^ 
Yours very truly, Robert Louis Stevenson. 

* The Theatre Fran9ais, the most noted theatre in Paris. 

2 Cowards. 

' Ah, sir, you are very young. 



LETTERS 25 

PACIFIC VOYAGES 

To Charles Baxter 

Yacht " Casco/' at Sea, near the Paumotus/ 
7 A. M., September Qth, 1888, with a dreadful pen. 
My Dear Charles, — Last night as I lay under my 
blanket in the cockpit, courting sleep, I had a comic 
seizure. There was nothing visible but the southern 
stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; 
we were all looking forward to a most deplorable land- 
fall on the morrow, praying God we should fetch a tuft 
of palms which are to indicate the Dangerous Archipel- 
ago; the night was as warm as milk, and all of a sudden 
I had a vision of — Drummond Street. It came on me 
like a flash of lightning: I simply returned thither, and 
into the past. And when I remember all I hoped 
and feared as I pickled about Rutherford's in the rain 
and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere 
shipwreck, and yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I 
should never have a friend, far less a wife, and yet pas- 
sionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did not take 
to drink) I should possibly write one little book, etc. 
etc. And then now — what a change! I feel somehow 
as if I should like the incident set upon a brass plate at 
the corner of that dreary thoroughfare for all students to 
read, poor devils, when their hearts are down. And I 
felt I must write one word to you. Excuse me if I write 
little: when I am at sea, it gives me a headache; when I 
am in port, I have my diary crying "Give, give.'' I 
shall have a fine book of travels, I feel sure; and will tell 
you more of the South Seas after very few months than 

^ Island dependencies of France, about longitude 140° W, and lat^ 
itude 20° S, 



26 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

any other writer has done — except Herman Melville^ 
perhaps, who is a howling cheese. Good luck to you, 
God bless you. — Your affectionate friend, d t c 



To R. A. M. Stevenson 2 

Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, February, 1889. 
My Dear Bob, — My extremely foolhardy venture is 
practically over. How foolhardy it was I don't think I 
realised. We had a very small schooner, and, like most 
yachts, over-rigged and over-sparred, and like many 
American yachts on a very dangerous sail plan. The 
waters we sailed in are, of course, entirely unlighted, 
and very badly charted; in the Dangerous Archipel- 
ago, through which we were fools enough to go, we were 
perfectly in ignorance of where we were for a whole night 
and half the next day, and this in the midst of invisible 
islands and rapid and variable currents; and we were 
lucky when we found our whereabouts at last. We have 
twice had all we wanted in the way of squalls: once, as 
I came on deck, I found the green sea over the cockpit 
coamings and running down the companion like a brook 
to meet me; at that same moment the foresail sheet 
jammed and the captain had no knife; this was the only 
occasion on the cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, 
but I worked like a Trojan, judging the possibility of 
haemorrhage better than the certainty of drowning. An- 
other time I saw a rather singular thing: our whole ship^s 

^ An American novelist (1819-1891) who wrote stories of life on 
the Pacific. 

2 Cousin and intimate friend of Stevenson. An art critic noted for 
his conversational powers. See W. H. Low's A Chronicle of Friend- 
ships for an account of the relationship between the cousins. His 
conversation is described in the latter portion of Stevenson's Talks 
and Talkers (omitted in these selections). 



LETTERS 27 

company as pale as paper from the captain to the cook; 
we had a black squall astern on the port side and a 
white squall ahead to starboard; the complication passed 
off innocuous, the black squall only fetching us with its 
tail, and the white one slewing off somewhere else. 
Twice we were a long while (days) in the close vicin- 
ity of hurricane weather, but again luck prevailed, and 
we saw none of it. These are dangers incident to these 
seas and small craft. What was an amazement, and at 
the same time a powerful stroke of luck, both our masts 
were rotten, and we found it out — I was going to say in 
time, but it was stranger and luckier than that. The 
head of the mainmast hung over so that hands were 
afraid to go to the helm; and less than three weeks be- 
fore — I am not sure it was more than a fortnight — we 
had been nearly twelve hours beating off the lee shore of 
Eimeo (or Moorea, next island to Tahiti) in half a gale 
of wind with a violent head sea: she would neither tack 
nor wear once, and had to be boxed off with the main- 
sail — you can imagine what an ungodly show of kites we 
carried — and yet the mast stood. The very day after 
that, in the southern bight of Tahiti, we had a near 
squeak, the wind suddenly coming calm; the reefs were 
close in with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought we 
were gone, and the captain had a boat cleared, when a 
lucky squall came to our rescue. My wife, hearing the 
order given about the boats, remarked to my mother, 
"Isn't that nice? We shall soon be ashore!'^ Thus 
does the female mind unconsciously skirt along the 
verge of eternity. Our voyage up here was most dis- 
astrous — calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain, 
hurricane weather all about, and we in the midst of the 
hurricane season, when even the hopeful builder and 
owner of the yacht had pronounced these seas unfit for 
her. We ran out of food, and were quite given up for 



28 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

lost in Honolulu: people had ceased to speak to Belle* 
about the Casco, as a deadly subject. 

But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; 
and though I am very glad to be done with them for a 
while and comfortably ashore, where a squall does not 
matter a snuff to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall want 
to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful risk I took 
was financial, and double-headed. First, I had to sink 
a lot of money in the cruise, and if I did n't get health, 
how was I to get it back? I have got health to a won- 
derful extent; and as I have the most interesting matter 
for my book, bar accidents, I ought to get all I have laid 
out and a profit. But, second (what I own I never con- 
sider till too late), there was the danger of collisions, of 
damages and heavy repairs, of disablement, towing, and 
salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned round and 
cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till 
I hear the yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have 
shaken the dust of her deck from my feet, I fear (as a 
point of law) she is still mine till she gets there. 

From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been 
a wonderful success. I never knew the world was so 
amusing. On the last voyage we had grown so used to 
sea-life that no one wearied, though it lasted a full 
month, except Fanny, who is always ill. All the time 
our visits to the islands have been more like dreams than 
realities: the people, the life, the beach-combers, the old 
stories and songs I have picked up, so interesting; the 
climate, the scenery, and (in some places) the women, 
so beautiful. The women are handsomest in Tahiti, the 
men in the Marquesas; both as fine types as can be im- 
agined. Lloyd reminds me, I have not told you one 
characteristic incident of the cruise from a semi-naval 

* Stevenson's step-daughter, Mrs. Strong, who was at this time liv- 
ing at Honolulu. 



LETTERS 29 

point of view. One night we were going ashore in An- 
aho Bay; the most awful noise on deck; the breakers dis- 
tinctly audible in the cabin; and there I had to sit below, 
entertaining in my best style a negroid native chieftain, 
much the worse for rum! You can imagine the even- 
ing's pleasure. 

This naval report on cruising in the South Seas would 
be incomplete without one other trait. On our voyage 
up here I came one day into the dining-room, the hatch 
in the floor was open, the ship's boy was below with a 
baler, and two of the hands were carrying buckets as for 
a fire; this meant that the pumps had ceased working. 

One stirring day was that in which we sighted Ha- 
waii. It blew fair, but very strong; we carried jib, fore- 
sail, and mainsail, all single-reefed, and she carried her 
lee rail under water and flew. The swell, the heaviest I 
have ever been out in — I tried in vain to estimate the 
height, at least fifteen feet — came tearing after us about 
a point and a half off the wind. We had the best hand 
— old Louis — at the wheel; and, really, he did nobly, 
and had noble luck, for it never caught us once. At 
times it seemed v/e must have it; Louis would look over 
his shoulder with the queerest look and dive down his 
neck into his shoulders; and then it missed us somehow, 
and only sprays came over our quarter, turning the little 
outside lane of deck into a mill race as deep as to the 
cockpit coamings. I never remember anything more de- 
lightful and exciting. Pretty soon after we were lying 
absolutely becalmed under the lee of Hawaii, of which 
we had been warned; and the captain never confessed 
he had done it on purpose, but when accused, he smiled. 
Really, I suppose he did quite right, for we stood com- 
mitted to a dangerous race, and to bring her to the wind 
would have been rather a heart-sickening manoeuvre. 

R. L. S. 



30 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 



To Mrs. R. L. Stevenson 

Kalawao, Molokai [May, 1889].^ 
Dear Fanny, — I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cam- 
eron and Mr. Gilfillan, both born in the States, yet the 
first still with a strong Highland, and the second still 
with a strong Lowland accent, were good company; the 
night was warm, the victuals plain but good. Mr. Gil- 
fillan gave me his berth, and I slept well, though I heard 
the sisters sick in the next state-room, poor souls. Heavy 
rolling woke me in the morning; I turned in all standing, 
so went right on the upper deck. The day was on the 
peep out of a low morning bank, and we were wallow- 
ing along under stupendous cliffs. As the lights bright- 
ened, we could see certain abutments and buttresses on 
their front where wood clustered and grass grew brightly. 
But the whole brow seemed quite impassable, and my 
heart sank at the sight. Two thousand feet of rock 
making 19° (the Captain guesses) seemed quite beyond 
my powers. However, I had come so far; and, to tell 
you the truth, I was so cowed with fear and disgust that 
I dared not go back on the adventure in the interests of 
my own self-respect. Presently we came up with the 
leper promontory: lowland, quite bare and bleak and 
harsh, a little town of wooden houses, two churches, a 
landing-stair, all unsightly, sour, northerly, lying athwart 
the sunrise, with the great wall of the pali ^ cutting the 
world out on the south. Our lepers were sent on the 
first boat, about a dozen, one poor child very horrid, one 
white man, leaving a large grown family behind him in 
Honolulu, and then into the second stepped the sisters 

^ The two following letters were written during and immediately 
after Stevenson's visit to Molokai, the noted leper settlement and 
scene of Father Damien's labours. 

2 Precipice. 



LETTERS 31 

and myself. I do not know how it would have been 
with me had the sisters not been there. My horror of 
the horrible is about my weakest point; but the moral 
loveliness at my elbow blotted all else out; and when I 
found that one of them was crying, poor soul, quietly 
under her veil, I cried a little myself; then I felt as right 
as a trivet, only a little crushed to be there so uselessly. 
I thought it was a sin and a shame she should feel un- 
happy; I turned round to her, and said something like 
this: "Ladies, God Himself is here to give you welcome. 
I *m sure it is good for me to be beside you; I hope it 
will be blessed to me; I thank you for myself and the 
good you do me.^^ It seemed to cheer her up; but in- 
deed I had scarce said it when we were at the landing- 
stairs, and there was a great crowd, hundreds of (God 
save us!) pantomime masks in poor human flesh, wait- 
ing to receive the sisters and the new patients. 

Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made 
up my mind on the boat's voyage not to give my hand, 
that seemed less offensive than the gloves. So the sisters 
and I went up among that crew, and presently I got aside 
(for I felt I had no business there) and set off on foot 
across the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera. 
All horror was quite gone from me: to see these dread 
creatures smile and look happy was beautiful. On my 
way through Kalaupapa I was exchanging cheerful 
alohas^ with the patients coming galloping over on their 
horses; I was stopping to gossip at house-doors; I was 
happy, only ashamed of myself that I was here for no 
good. One woman was pretty, and spoke good Eng- 
lish, and was infinitely engaging and (in the old phrase) 
towardly; she thought I was the new white patient; and 
when she found I was only a visitor, a curious change 
came in her face and voice — the only sad thing — morally 
^ The customary Hawaiian greeting. 



32 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

sad, I mean — that I met that morning. But for all that, 
they tell me none want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the 
houses became rare; dry stone dykes, grassy, stony land, 
one sick pandanus;^ a dreary country; from overhead in 
the little clinging wood shogs of the pali chirruping of 
birds fell; the low sun was right in my face; the trade 
blew pure and cool and delicious; I felt as right as nine- 
pence, and stopped and chatted with the patients whom 
I still met on their horses, with not the least disgust. 
About half-way over, I met the superintendent (a leper) 
with a horse for me, and O, was n't I glad! But the 
horse was one of those curious, dogged, cranky brutes 
that always dully want to go somewhere else, and my 
traffic with him completed my crushing fatigue. I got 
to the guest-house, an empty house with several rooms, 
kitchen, bath, etc. There was no one there, and I let 
the horse go loose in the garden, lay down on the bed, 
and fell asleep. 

Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I 
came back and slept again while he was at the dispen- 
sary, and he woke me for dinner; and I came back and 
slept again, and he woke me about six for supper; and 
then in about an hour I felt tired again, and came up to 
my solitary guest-house, played the flageolet, and am 
now writing to you. As yet, you see, I have seen noth- 
ing of the settlement, and my crushing fatigue (though 
I believe that was moral and a measure of my coward- 
ice) and the doctor's opinion make me think the pali 
hopeless. "You don't look a strong man," said the doc- 
tor; "but are you sound?" I told him the truth; then 
he said it was out of the question, and if I were to get up 
at all, I must be carried up. But, as it seems, men as 
well as horses continually fall on this ascent: the doctor 

^ A Malayan plant with palm-like stem and sword-shaped, spiny 
leaves. 



LETTERS 33 

goes up with a change of clothes — it is plain that to b 
carried would in itself be very fatiguing to both mini 
and body; and I should then be at the beginning of thir 
teen miles of mountain road to be ridden against time. 
How should I come through ? I hope you will think me 
right in my decision: I mean to stay, and shall not be 
back in Honolulu till Saturday, June first. You must 
all do the best you can to make ready. 

Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, begianing to 
toddle and run, and they live here as composed as brick 
and mortar — at least the wife does, a Kentucky German, 
a fine enough creature, I believe, who was quite amazed 
at the sisters shedding tears! How strange is mankind! 
Gilfillan too, a good fellow I think, and far from a stupid, 
kept up his hard Lowland Scottish talk in the boat while 
the sister was covering her face; but I believe he knew, 
and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and part perhaps 
in mistaken kindness. And that was one reason, too, 
why I made my speech to them. Partly, too, I did it, 
because I was ashamed to do so, and remembered one of 
my golden rules, " When you are ashamed to speak, speak 
up at once." But, mind you, that rule is only golden 
with strangers; with your own folks, there are other con- 
siderations. This is a strange place to be in. A bell 
has been sounded at intervals while I wrote, now all is 
still but a musical humming of the sea, not unlike the 
gound of telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and pitch 
dark, with a small fine rain; one light over in the leper 
settlement, one cricket whistling in the garden, my lamp 
here by my bedside, and my pen cheeping between my 
inky fingers. 

Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80° in the 
shade, strong, sweet Anaho trade-wind. 

Louis. 



34 SELECTIONS FROlft STEVENSON 

To Sidney Colvin.^ 

[Honolulu, May or June, 1889.] 
My Dear Colvin, — I am just home after twelve days' 
journey to Molokai, seven of them at the leper settle- 
ment, where I can only say that the sight of so much 
courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high 
to mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights. I used 
to ride over from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three 
miles across the promontory, the cliff-wall, ivied with 
forest and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my left), 
go tf> the Sisters^ home, which is a miracle of neatness, 
play a game of croquet with seven leper girls (90° in the 
shade), get a little old-maid meal served me by the Sis- 
ters, and ride home again, tired enough, but not too tired. 
The girls have all dolls, and love dressing them. You 
who know so many ladies delicately clad, and they who 
know so many dressmakers, please make it known it 
would be an acceptable gift to send scraps for doll dress- 
making to the Reverend Sister Maryanne, Bishop 
Home, Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaiian Islands. 

I have seen sights that cannot be told, and heard 
stories that cannot be repeated: yet I never admired my 
poor race so much, nor (strange as it may seem) loved 
life more than in the settlement. A horror of moral 
beauty broods over the place: that 's like bad Victor 
Hugo, but it is the only way I can express the sense that 
lived with me all these days. And this even though it 
was in great part Catholic, and my sympathies flew never 
with so much difficulty as towards Catholic virtues. 
The pass-book kept with heaven stirs me to anger and 
laughter. One of the sisters calls the place ^*the ticket 
office to heaven.^' Well, what is the odds? They do 
their darg,^ and do it with kindness and efficiency in- 
* See page viii. ^ Day's work. 



LETTERS 35 

credible; and we must take folk's virtues as we find them, 
and love the better part. Of old Damien/ whose weak- 
nesses and worse perhaps I heard fully, I think only the 
more. It was a European peasant: dirty, bigotted, un- 
truthful, unwise, tricky, but superb with generosity, 
residual candour and fundamental good-humour: con- 
vince him he had done wrong (it might take hours of in- 
sult) and he would undo what he had done and like his 
corrector better. A man, with all the grime and paltri- 
ness of mankind, but a saint and hero all the more for 
that. The place as regards scenery is grand, gloomy, 
and bleak. Mighty mountain walls descending sheer 
along the whole face of the island into a sea unusually 
deep; the front of the mountain ivied and furred with 
clinging forest, one viridescent cliff: about half-way from 
east to west, the low, bare, stony promontory edged in 
between the cliff and the ocean; the two little towns 
(Kalawao and Kalaupapa) seated on either side of it, as 
bare almost as bathing machines upon a beach; and the 
population — gorgons and chimseras dire. All this tear 
of the nerves I bore admirably; and the day after I got 
away, rode twenty miles along the opposite coast and up 
into the mountains: they call it twenty, I am doubtful of 
the figures: I should guess it nearer twelve; but let me 
take credit for what residents allege; and I was riding 
again the day after, so I need say no more about health. 
Honolulu does not agree with me at all: I am always out 
of sorts there, with slight headache, blood to the head, 
etc. I had a good deal of work to do and did it with 
miserable difficulty; and yet all the time I have been 
gaining strength, as you see, which is highly encourag- 
ing. By the time I am done with this cruise I shall have 
the material for a very singular book of travels: names of 
strange stories and characters, cannibals, pirates, ancient 
^ See Father Damierif p. 193. 



36 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

legends, old Polynesian poetry, — never was so generous 
a farrago. I am going down now to get the story of a 
shipwrecked family, who were fifteen months on an 
island with a murderer: there is a specimen. The Pa- 
cific is a strange place; the nineteenth century only ex- 
ists there in spots: all round, it is a no man's land of the 
ages, a stir-about of epochs and races, barbarisms and 
civilisations, virtues and crimes. 

It is good of you to let me stay longer, but if I had 
known how ill you were, I should be now on my way 
home. I had chartered my schooner and made all ar- 
rangements before (at last) we got definite news. I feel 
highly guilty; I should be back to insult and worry. you 
a little. Our address till further notice is to be ^/o R. 
Towns and Co., Sydney. That is final: I only got the 
arrangement made yesterday; but you may now publish 

it abroad.— Yours ever, r> t o 

xt* Lj» o. 



LIFE IN SAMOA 



In the Mountain, Apia, Samoa, 
Monday, November 2d, 1890. 
My Dear Colvin, — This is a hard and interesting 
and beautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a 
deep cleft in Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above 
the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling 
enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I 
went crazy over out-door work, and had at last to con- 
fine myself to the house, or literature must have gone by 
the board. Nothing is so interesting as weeding, clear- 
ing, and path-making; the oversight of labourers be- 
comes a disease; it is quite an effort not to drop into the 



LETTERS 37 

farmer; and it does make you feel so well. To come 
down covered with mud and drenched with sweat and 
rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, 
and take a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet con- 
science. And the strange thing that I mark is this: if I 
go out and make sixpence, bossing my labourers and ply- 
ing the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds 
me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot 
conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted. 
. . . Let me sketch my lads. — Henry — Henry has gone 
down to town or I could not be writing to you — this were 
the hour of his English lesson else, when he learns what 
he calls "long explessions^' or "your chiefs language '* 
for the matter of an hour and a half — Henry is a chiefling 
from Savaii;^ I once loathed, I now like and — pending 
fresh discoveries — have a kind of respect for Henry. He 
does good work for us; goes among the labourers, boss- 
ing and watching; helps Fanny; is civil, kindly, thought- 
ful; si sic semper!^ But will he be "his sometime 
self throughout the year^'? Anyway, he has deserved 
of us, and he must disappoint me sharply ere I give him 
up. — Bene — or Peni — Ben, in plain English — is sup- 
posed to be my ganger;^ the Lord love him! God made 
a truckling coward, there is his full history. He cannot 
tell me what he wants; he dares not tell me what is wrong; 
he dares not transmit my orders or translate my cen- 
sures. And with all this, honest, sober, industrious, 
miserably smiling over the miserable issue of his own 
unmanliness, — Paul — a German — cook and steward — a 
glutton of work — a splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: 
(1) no cook; (2) an inveterate bungler, a man with twenty 
thumbs, continually falling in the dishes, throwing out 
the dinner, preserving the garbage; (3) a dr — , well, don't 

^ One of the Samoan Islands. 

2 If it were always thus I ' Foreman. 



38 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

let us say that — but we daren^t let him go to town, and 
he — poor, good soul — is afraid to be let go. — Lafaele 
(Raphael), a strong, dull, deprecatory man; splendid 
with an axe, if watched; the better for a rowing, when 
he calls me "Papa'^ in the most wheedling tones; des- 
perately afraid of ghosts, so that he dare not walk alone 
up in the banana patch. . . . The rest are changing 
labourers; and to-night, owing to the miserable cowar- 
dice of Peni, who did not venture to tell me what the men 
wanted — and which was no more than fair — all are gone 
— and my weeding in the article of being finished! Pity 
the sorrows of a planter. 
I am, Sir, yours, and be jowned to you. The Planter, 

R. L. S. 



Tuesday, Srd [Nov., 1890]. 

I begin to see the whole scheme of letter-writing; you 
sit down every day and pour out an equable stream of 
twaddle. 

This morning all my fears were fled, and all the trou- 
ble had fallen to the lot of Peni himself, who deserved 
it; my field was full of weeders; and I am again able to 
justify the ways of God. All morning I worked at the 
South Seas, and finished the chapter I had stuck upon 
on Saturday. Fanny, awfully hove-to with rheumatics 
and injuries received upon the field of sport and glory, 
chasing pigs, was unable to go up and down stairs, so 
she sat upon the back verandah, and my work was 
chequered by her cries. " Paul, you take a spade to do 
that — dig a hole first. If you do that, you '11 cut your 
foot off! Here, you boy, what you do there? You no 
get work ? You go find Simele,^ he give you work. Peni, 
you tell this boy he go find Simele; suppose Simele no 

^The "Henry" of the previous letter. 



LETTERS 39 

give him work, you tell him go Vay. I no want him 
here. That boy no good/' — Peni (from the distance in 
reassuring tones), "All right, sir!'' — Fanny (after a long 
pause), "Peni, you tell that boy go find Simele! I no 
want him stand here all day. I no pay that boy. I see 
him all day. He no do nothing." — Luncheon, beef, 
soda-scones, fried bananas, pineapple in claret, coffee. 
Try to write a poem; no go. Play the flageolet. Then 
sneakingly off to farmering and pioneering. Four gangs 
at work on our place; a lively scene; axes crashing 
and smoke blowing; all the knives are out. But I rob 
the garden party of one without a stock, and you should 
see my hand — cut to ribbons. Now I want to do my 
path up the Vaituliga^ single-handed, and I want it to 
burst on the public complete. Hence, with devilish in- 
genuity, I begin it at different places; so that if you stum- 
ble on one section, you may not even then suspect the 
fulness of my labours. Accordingly, I started in a new 
place, below the wire, and hoping to work up to it. It 
was perhaps lucky I had so bad a cutlass, and my smart- 
ing hand bid me stay before I had got up to the wire, but 
just in season, so that I was only the better of my ac- 
tivity, not dead beat as yesterday. 

A strange business it was, and infinitely solitary; away 
above, the sun was in the high tree-tops; the lianas noosed 
and sought to hang me; the saplings struggled, and came 
up with that sob of death that one gets to know so well; 
great, soft, sappy trees fell at a lick of the cutlass, little 
tough switches laughed at and dared my best endeavour. 
Soon, toiling down in that pit of verdure, I heard blows 
on the far side, and then laughter. I confess a chill set- 
tled on my heart. Being so dead alone, in a place where 
by rights none should be beyond me, I was aware, upon 
interrogation, if those blows had drawn nearer, I should 
^ One of the five rivers for which VaiHma was named. 



40 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

(of course quite unaffectedly) have executed a strategic 
movement to the rear; and only the other day I was la- 
menting my insensibility to superstition! Am I begin- 
ning to be sucked in? Shall I become a midnight 
twitterer like my neighbours? At times I thought the 
blows were echoes; at times I thought the laughter was 
from birds. For our birds are strangely human in their 
calls. Vaea mountain about sun-down sometimes rings 
with shrill cries, like the hails of merry, scattered children. 
As a matter of fact, I believe stealthy wood-cutters from 
Tanugamanono were above me in the wood and answer- 
able for the blows; as for the laughter, a woman and two 
children had come and asked Fanny's leave to go up 
shrimp-fishing in the burn; beyond doubt, it was these 
I heard. Just at the right time I returned; to wash 
down, change, and begin this snatch of letter before din- 
ner was ready, and to finish it afterwards, before Henry 
has yet put in an appearance for his lesson in " long ex- 
plessions.'' 

Dinner: stewed beef and potatoes, baked bananas, 
new loaf-bread hot from the oven, pineapple in claret. 
These are great days; we have been low in the past; but 
now are we as belly-gods, enjoying all things. 



II 

Dec. 2nd, afternoon [1891].^ 
I have kept up the idleness; blew on the pipe^ to Belle's 
piano; then had a ride in the forest all by my nainsel; 
back and piped again, and now dinner nearing. Take 
up this sheet with nothing to say. The weird figure of 
Faauma is in the room washing my windows, in a black 

1 To Sidney Colvin. ^ jjig flageolet. 



LETTERS 41 

lavalava (kilt) with a red handkerchief hanging from 
round her neck between her breasts; not another stitch; 
her hair close cropped and oiled; when she first came 
here she was an angelic little stripling, but she is now 
in full flower — or half-flower — and grows buxom. As 
I write, I hear her wet cloth moving and grunting with 
some industry; for I had a word this day with her hus- 
band on the matter of work and meal-time, when she is 
always late. And she has a vague reverence for Papa, 
as she and her enormous husband address me when 
anything is wrong. Her husband is Lafaele, sometimes 
called the archangel, of whom I have writ you often. 
Rest of our household, Talolo, cook; Pulu, kitchen boy, 
good, steady, industrious lads; Henry, back again from 
Savaii, where his love affair seems not to have prospered, 
with what looks like a spear-wound in the back of his 
head, of which Mr. Reticence says nothing; Simi, Manu- 
lee, and two other labourers out-doors. Lafaele is pro- 
vost of the live-stock, whereof now, three milk-cows, one 
bull-calf, one heifer. Jack, Macfarlane, the mare, Harold, 
Tifaga Jack, Donald and Edinburgh — seven horses — O, 
and the stallion — eight horses; five cattle; total, if my 
arithmetic be correct, thirteen head of beasts; I don't 
know how the pigs stand, or the ducks, or the chickens; 
but we get a good many eggs, and now and again a duck- 
ling or a chickling for the table; the pigs are more solemn, 
and appear only on birthdays and sich. 



Ill 

Jan. 2nd [1892].^ 
I woke this morning to find the blow quite ended. 
The heaven was all a mottled gray; even the east quite 
^ To Sidney Colvin. 



42 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

colourless; the downward slope of the island veiled in 
wafts of vapour, blue like smoke; not a leaf stirred on 
the tallest tree; only, three miles away below me on the 
barrier reef, I could see the individual breakers curl and 
fall, and hear their conjunct roaring rise, as it still rises 
at 1 p. M., like the roar of a thoroughfare close by. I did 
a good morning's work, correcting and clarifying my 
draft, and have now finished for press eight chapters, 
ninety-one pages, of this piece of journalism. Four 
more chapters, say fifty pages, remain to be done; I 
should gain my wager and finish this volume in three 
months, that is to say, the end should leave me per 
February mail; I cannot receive it back till the mail of 
April. Yes, it can be out in time; pray God that it be 
in time to help.^ 

How do journalists fetch up their drivel ? I aim only 
at clearness and the most obvious finish, positively at no 
higher degree of merit, not even at brevity — I am sure 
it could have been all done, with double the time, in 
two-thirds of the space. And yet it has taken me two 
months to write 45,500 words; and be damned to my 
wicked prowess, I am proud of the exploit! The real 
journalist must be a man not of brass only, but bronze. 
Chapter IX. gapes for me, but I shrink on the margin, 
and go on chattering to you. ... I estimate the whole 
roughly at 70,000 words. Should anybody ever dream 
of reading it, it would be found amusing. ^^%%^ = 233 
printed pages; a respectable little five-bob volume, to 
bloom unread in shop windows. After that, I'll have a 
spank at fiction. And rest ? I shall rest in the grave, or 
when I come to Italy. If only the public will continue 
to support me! I lost my chance not dying; there seems 
blooming little fear of it now. I worked close on five 

^ He was busy at the time with A Foot-Note to History: Eight Years 
of Trouble in Samoa, 



LETTERS 43 

hours this morning; the day before, close on nine; and 
unless I finish myself oflf with this letter, I '11 have an- 
other hour and a half, or aihlins twa,^ before dinner. 
Poor man, how you must envy me, as you hear of these 
orgies of work, and you scarce able for a letter. But 
Lord Colvin how lucky the situations are not reversed, 
for I have no situation, nor am fit for any. Life is a 
steigh brae.^ Here, have at Knappe,^ and no more 
clavers! * 



IV 

Thursday, April 5th [1893].' 
Well, there's no disguise possible; Fanny is not well, 
and we are miserably anxious. . . . 

Friday, 7th [1893]. 
I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at 
once. A crape has been removed from the day for all 
of us. To make things better, the morning is ah! such 
a morning as you have never seen; heaven upon earth 
for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of unimag- 
inable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment 
only by the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich 
piping of a single bird. You can't conceive what a re- 
lief this is; it seems a new world. She has such extraor- 
dinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. 
I am as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a 
family, and I thank God it seems as if ours was going 
to bear it well. And oh! if it only lets up, it will be 
but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd;® 

^ Perhaps two. ^ Steep hill. 

' German consul in Samoa. * Idle tales. 

^ To Sidney Colvin. ® See p. x. 



44 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Fanny, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly 
overworked and bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad 
foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad leg. Eh, what a 
faim'ly! 

Sunday [April, 1893]. 
Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thun- 
der and lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my in- 
valids are really on the mend. The rain roars like the 
sea; in the sound of it there is a strange and ominous 
suggestion of an approaching tramp; something name- 
less and measureless seems to draw near, and strikes 
me cold, and yet is welcome. I lie quiet in bed to- 
day, and think of the universe with a good deal of equa- 
nimity. I have, at this moment, but the one objection to 
it; the fracas with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; 
I am like my grandfather in that; and so many years in 
these still islands has ingrained the sentiment perhaps. 
Here are no trains, only men pacing barefoot. No carts 
or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse^s shoes among 
the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robust- 
ious rain takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls. 



April le^/i [1893]. 
Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn; 
the wailings of a crushed worm; matter in which neither 
you nor I can take stock. Fanny is distinctly better, I 
believe all right now; I too am mending, though I have 
suffered from crushed wormery, which is not good for 
the body, and damnation to the soul. I feel to-night 
a baseless anxiety to write a lovely poem a propos des 
bottes de ma grandmere} I see I am idiotic. I'll try the 
poem. 

* About nothing. 



LETTERS ^ 45 



To Alison Cunningham^ 

For a fuller account of the road-making aflEair here mentioned, 
see Vailima Letters, pp. 344, 360. 

[Vailima], October 8th, 1894. 

My Dear Cummy, — So I hear you are ailing? Think 
shame to yoursell! So you think there is nothing better 
to be done with time than that? and be sure we can all 
do much ourselves to decide whether we are to be ill or 
well! like a man on the gymnastic bars. We are all 
pretty well. As for me, there is nothing the matter with 
me in the world, beyond the disgusting circumstance that 
I am not so young as once I was. Lloyd has a gymnastic 
machine, and practises upon it every morning for an 
hour: he is beginning to be a kind of yoimg Samson. 
Austin^ grows fat and brown, and gets on not so ill with 
his lessons, and my mother is in great price. We are 
having knock-me-down weather for heat; I never re- 
member it so hot before, and I fancy it means we are to 
have a hurricane again this year, I think; since we came 
here, we have not had a single gale of wind! The Pa- 
cific is but a child to the North Sea; but when she does 
get excited, and gets up and girds herself, she can do 
something good. We have had a very interesting busi- 
ness here. I helped the chiefs who were in prison; and 
when they were set free, what should they do but offer 
to make a part of my road for me out of gratitude ? Well, 
I was ashamed to refuse, and the trumps dug my road for 
me, and put up this inscription on a board: — 

" Considering the great love of His Excellency Tusitala 
in his loving care of us in our tribulation in the prison, 
we have made this great gift; it shall never be muddy , it 

^ The faithful nurse of Stevenson's boyhood. 
^ Grandson of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson. 



46 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

shall go on for every this road that we have dug ! ^^ We had 
a great feast when it was done, and I read them a kind 
of lecture, which I dare say Auntie will have, and can 
let you see. Weel, guid-bye to ye, and joy be wi' ye! 
I hae nae time to say mair. They say I 'm gettin' Jat 
— a fact! — Your laddie, with all love, 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT^ 

THE SECOND CABIN 

I FIRST encountered my fellow-passengers on the 
Broomielaw^ in Glasgow. Thence we descended the 
Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askance on each 
other as on possible enemies. A few Scandinavians, who 
had already grown acquainted on the North Sea, were 
friendly and voluble over their long pipes; but among 
English speakers distance and suspicion reigned supreme. 
The sun was soon overclouded, the wind freshened and 
grew sharp as we continued to descend the widening 
estuary; and with the falling temperature the gloom 
among the passengers increased. Two of the women 
wept. Any one who had come aboard might have sup- 
posed we were all absconding from the law. There 
was scarce a word interchanged, and no common senti- 
ment but that of cold united us, until at length, hav- 
ing touched at Greenock,^ a pointing arm and a rush 

^ Written during the autumn and winter before Stevenson's mar- 
riage (1879-1880), while the author was in CaHfornia. It is drawn 
direct from Hfe, being based on Stevenson's experiences in crossing 
the Atlantic the previous summer. Preparations for printing it 
were made at once; but for various reasons publication was indefi- 
nitely postponed. The work was abridged and revised in 1894, and 
published in the Edinburgh Edition, January, 1895, Writing to 
Sidney Colvin when The Amateur Emigrant was about half done, 
Stevenson says, " I believe it will be more popular than any of my 
others; the canvas is so much more popular and larger too.'' This 
statement was, perhaps, too sanguine; but the last clause shows 
where the real strength of the Emigrant lies. 

2 A quay just below Glasgow bridge. 

^ A seaport on the Clyde nineteen miles northwest of Glasgow. 

49 



50 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

to starboard now announced that our ocean steamer was 
in sight. There she lay in mid-river, at the tail of the 
Bank, her sea-signal flying: a wall of bulwark, a street 
of white deck-houses, an aspiring forest of spars, larger 
than a church, and soon to be as populous as many an in- 
corporated town in the land to which she was to bear us. 

I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although 
anxious to see the worst of emigrant life, I had some 
work to finish on the voyage, and was advised to go by 
the second cabin, where at least I should have a table at 
command. The advice was excellent; but to understand 
the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the in- 
ternal disposition of the ship will first be necessary. In 
her very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of stairs. 
A little abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage 
No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two run- 
ning forward towards Steerage No. 1, and the third aft 
towards the engines. The starboard forward gallery is 
the second cabin. Away abaft the engines and below 
the officers' cabins, to complete our survey of the vessel, 
there is yet a third nest of steerages, labelled 4 and 5. 
The second cabin, to return, is thus a modified oasis in 
the very heart of the steerages. Through the thin par- 
tition you can hear the steerage passengers being sick, 
the rattle of tin dishes as they sit at meals, the varied 
accents in which they converse, the crying of their chil- 
dren terrified by this new experience, or the clean flat 
smack of the parental hand in chastisement. 

There are, however, many advantages for the inhabi- 
tant of this strip. He does not require to bring his own 
bedding or dishes, but finds berths and a table com- 
pletely if somewhat roughly furnished. He enjoys a 
distinct superiority in diet; but this, strange to say, dif- 
fers not only on different ships, but on the same ship 
according as her head is to the east or west. In my own 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 51 

experience, the principal difference between our table 
and that of the true steerage passenger was the table 
itself, and the crockery plates from which we ate. But 
lest I should show myself ungrateful, let me recapitulate 
every advantage. At breakfast, we had a choice be- 
tween tea and coffee for beverage; a choice not easy to 
make, the two were so surprisingly alike. I found that 
I could sleep after the coffee and lay awake after the 
tea, which is proof conclusive of some chemical dis- 
parity; and even by the palate I could distinguish a 
smack of snuff in the former from a flavour of boiling 
and dish-cloths in the second. As a matter of fact, I 
have seen passengers, after many sips, still doubting 
which had been supplied them. In the way of eatables 
at the same meal we were gloriously favoured; for in 
addition to porridge, w^hich was common to all, w^e had 
Irish stew, sometimes a bit of fish, and sometimes ris- 
soles. The dinner of soup, roast fresh beef, boiled salt 
junk, and potatoes, was, I believe, exactly common to 
the steerage and the second cabin; only I have heard it 
rumoured that our potatoes were of a superior brand; 
and twice a week, on pudding-days, instead of duff, we 
had a saddle-bag filled with currants under the name of 
a plum-pudding. At tea we were served with some 
broken meat from the saloon; sometimes in the compara- 
tively elegant form of spare patties or rissoles; but as a 
general thing, mere chicken-bones and flakes of fish, 
neither hot nor cold. If these w^ere not the scrapings of 
plates their looks belied them sorely; yet we were all too 
hungry to be proud, and fell to these leavings greedily. 
These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soup and 
porridge which were both good, formed my whole diet 
throughout the voyage; so that except for the broken 
meat and the convenience of a table I might as well have 
been in the steerage outright. Had they given me por- 



52 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ridge again in the evening, I should have been perfectly 
contented with the fare. As it was, with a few biscuits 
and some whisky and water before turning in, I kept 
my body going and my spirits up to the mark. 

The last particular in which the second-cabin passen- 
ger remarkably stands ahead of his brother of the steer- 
age is one altogether of sentiment. In the steerage there 
are males and females; in the second cabin ladies and 
gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I thought 
I was only a male; but in the course of a voyage of dis- 
covery between decks, I came on a brass plate, and 
learned that I was still a gentleman. Nobody knew it, 
of course. I was lost in the crowd of males and females, 
and rigorously confined to the same quarter of the deck. 
Who could tell whether I housed on the port or star- 
board side of steerage No. 2 and 3? And it w^as only 
there that my superiority became practical; everywhere 
else I was incognito, moving among my inferiors with 
simplicity, not so much as a swagger to indicate that I 
was a gentleman after all, and had broken meat to tea. 
Still, I was like one with a patent of nobility in a drawer 
at home; and when I felt out of spirits I could go down 
and refresh myself with a look of that brass plate. 

For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six 
guineas is the steerage fare; eight that by the second 
cabin; and when you remember that the steerage pas- 
senger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in five cases 
out of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or pri- 
vately pays the steward for extra rations, the difference 
in price becomes almost nominal. Air comparatively 
fit to breathe, food comparatively varied, and the satis- 
faction of being still privately a gentleman, may thus 
be had almost for the asking. Two of my fellow-pas- 
sengers in the second cabin had already made the pas- 
sage by the cheaper fare, and declared it was an ex- 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 53 

periment not to be repeated. As I go on to tell about 
my steerage friends, the reader will perceive that they 
were not alone in their opinion. Out of ten with whom I 
was more or less intimate, I am sure not fewer than five 
vowed, if they returned, to travel second cabin; and all 
who had left their wives behind them assured me they 
would go without the comfort of their presence until they 
could afford to bring them by saloon. 

Our party in the second cabin was not perhaps the 
most interesting on board. Perhaps even in the saloon 
there was as much good-will and character. Yet it had 
some elements of curiosity. There was a mixed group 
of Swedes, Danes, and Norsemen, one of whom, gen- 
erally known by the name of " Johnny,'^ in spite of his 
own protests, greatly diverted us by his clever, cross- 
country efforts to speak English, and became on the 
strength of that an universal favourite — it takes so little 
in this world of shipboard to create a popularity. There 
was, besides, a Scots mason, known from his favourite 
dish as "Irish Stew,^^ three or four nondescript Scots, a 
fine young Irishman, O'Reilly, and a pair of young men 
who deserve a special word of condemnation. One of 
them was Scots; the other claimed to be American; ad- 
mitted, after some fencing, that he was born in Eng- 
land; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and 
nurtured, but ashamed to own his country. He had a 
sister on board, w^hom he faithfully neglected through- 
out the voyage, though she was not only sick, but much 
his senior, and had nursed and cared for him in child- 
hood. In appearance he was like an imbecile Henry 
the Third of France. The Scotsman, though perhaps as 
big an ass, was not so dead of heart; and I have only 
bracketed them together because they were fast friends, 
and disgraced themselves equally by their conduct at the 
table. 



54 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Next, to turn to topics more agreeable, we had a newly 
married couple, devoted to each other, with a pleasant 
story of how they had first seen each other years ago at 
a preparatory school, and that very afternoon he had car- 
ried her books home for her. I do not know if this story 
will be plain to Southern readers; but to me it recalls 
many a school idyll, with wrathful swains of eight and 
nine confronting each other stride-legs, flushed with jeal- 
ousy; for to carry home a young lady's books was both 
a delicate attention and a privilege. 

Then there was an old lady, or indeed I am not sure 
that she was as much old as antiquated and strangely 
out of place, who had left her husband, and was travel- 
ling all the way to Kansas by herself. We had to take 
her own word that she was married; for it was sorely con- 
tradicted by the testimony of her appearance. Nature 
seemed to have sanctified her for the single state; even 
the colour of her hair was incompatible with matrimony, 
and her husband, I thought, should be a man of saintly 
spirit and phantasmal bodily presence. She was ill, 
poor thing; her soul turned from the viands; the dirty 
tablecloth shocked her like an impropriety; and the 
whole strength of her endeavour was bent upon keeping 
her watch true to Glasgow time till she should reach New 
York. They had heard reports, her husband and she, 
of some unwarrantable disparity of hours between these 
two cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had 
seized on this occasion to put them to the proof. It was 
a good thing for the old lady; for she passed much leisure 
time in studying the watch. Once, when prostrated by 
sickness, she let it run down. It was inscribed on her 
harmless mind in letters of adamant that the hands of 
a watch must never be turned backwards; and so it be- 
hoved her to lie in wait for the exact moment ere she 
started it again. When she imagined this was about 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 55 

due, she sought out one of the young second-cabin Scots- 
men, who was embarked on the same experiment as her- 
self and had hitherto been less neglectful. She was in 
quest of two o^ clock; and when she learned it was al- 
ready seven on the shores of Clyde, she lifted up her 
voice and cried " Gravy P^ I had not heard this inno- 
cent expletive since I was a young child; and I suppose 
it must have been the same with the other Scotsmen 
present, for we all laughed our fill. 

Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. 
Jones. It would be difficult to say whether I was his 
right-hand man, or he mine, during the voyage. Thus 
at table I carved, while he only scooped gravy; but at 
our concerts, of which more anon, he was the president 
who called up performers to sing, and I but his mes- 
senger who ran his errands and pleaded privately with 
the over-modest. I knew I liked Mr. Jones from the 
moment I saw him. I thought him by his face to be 
Scottish; nor could his accent undeceive me. For as 
there is a lingua franco} of many tongues on the moles 
and in the feluccas of the Mediterranean, so there is a 
free or common accent among English-speaking men 
who follow the sea. They catch a twang in a New Eng- 
land port; from a cockney skipper, even a Scotsman 
sometimes learns to drop an h; a word of a dialect is 
picked up from another hand in the forecastle; until often 
the result is undecipherable, and you have to ask for the 
man^s place of birth. So it was with Mr. Jones. I 
thought him a Scotsman who had been long to sea; and 
yet he was from Wales, and had been most of his life 
a blacksmith at an inland forge; a few years in Amer- 
ica and half a score of ocean voyages having sufficed 
to modify his speech into the common pattern. By his 

^ A phrase applied to any mixed jargon formed from words of 
several languages and used as an international dialect. 



56 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

own account he was both strong and skilful in his trade. 
A few years back, he had been married and after a 
fashion a rich man; now the wife was dead and the money 
gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, and 
goes on from one year to another and through all the 
extremities of fortune undismayed; and if the sky were 
to fall to-morrow, I should look to see Jones, the day 
following, perched on a step-ladder and getting things 
to rights. He was always hovering round inventions like 
a bee over a flower, and lived in a dream of patents. He 
had with him a patent medicine, for instance, the com- 
position of which he had bought years ago for five dol- 
lars from an American peddler, and sold the other day 
for a hundred pounds (I think it was) to an English 
apothecary. It was called Golden Oil, cured all mal- 
adies without exception; -and I am bound to say that I 
partook of it myself with good results. It is a character 
of the man that he was not only perpetually dosing him- 
self with Golden Oil, but wherever there was a head 
aching or a finger cut, there would be Jones with his 
bottle. 

If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was 
to study character. Many an hour have we two walked 
upon the deck dissecting our neighbours in a spirit that 
was too purely scientific to be called unkind; whenever 
a quaint or human trait slipped out in conversation, you 
might have seen Jones and me exchanging glances; and 
we could hardly go to bed in comfort till we had ex- 
changed notes and discussed the day's experience. We 
were then like a couple of anglers comparing a day^s 
kill. But the fish we angled for were of a metaphysical 
species, and we angled as often as not in one another's 
baskets. Once, in the midst of a serious talk, each 
found there was a scrutinising eye upon himself; I own 
I paused in embarrassment at this double detection; but 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 57 

Jones, with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaf- 
fected laughter, and declared, what was the truth, that 
there was a pair of us indeed. 



EARLY IMPRESSIONS 

We steamed out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and 
early on the Friday forenoon we took in our last batch 
of emigrants at Lough Foyle, in Ireland, and said fare- 
well to Europe. The company was now complete, and 
began to draw together, by inscrutable magnetisms, 
upon the decks. There were Scots and Irish in plenty, 
a few English, a few Americans, a good handful of Scan- 
dinavians, a German or two, and one Russian; all now 
belonging for ten days to one small iron country on the 
deep. 

As I walked the deck and looked round upon my fel- 
low-passengers, thus curiously assorted from all north- 
ern Europe, I began for the first time to understand the 
nature of emigration. Day by day throughout the pas- 
sage, and thenceforward across all the States, and on to 
the shores of the Pacific, this knowledge grew more clear 
and melancholy. Emigration, from a word of the most 
cheerful import, came to sound most dismally in my ear. 
There is nothing more agreeable to picture and noth- 
ing more pathetic to behold. The abstract idea, as con- 
ceived at home, is hopeful and adventurous. A young 
man, you fancy, scorning restraints and helpers, issues 
forth into life, that great battle, to fight for his own hand. 
The most pleasant stories of ambition, of diflBculties over- 
come, and of ultimate success, are but as episodes to 
this great epic of self-help. The epic is composed of 
individual heroisms; it stands to them as the victorious 
war which subdued an empire stands to the personal 



58 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and was 
adequately rewarded with a medal. For in emigration 
the young men enter direct and by the shipload on their 
heritage of work; empty continents swarm, as at the 
bo^sun's whistle, with industrious hands, and whole new 
empires are domesticated to the service of man. 

This is the closet picture, and is found, on trial, to 
consist mostly of embellishments. The more I saw of 
my fellow-passengers, the less I was tempted to the lyric 
note. Comparatively few of the men were below thirty; 
many were married, and encumbered with families; not 
a few were already up in years; and this itself was out 
of tune with my imaginations, for the ideal emigrant 
should certainly be young. Again, I thought he should 
offer to the eye some bold type of humanity, with bluff 
or hawk-like features, and the stamp of an eager and 
pushing disposition. Now those around me were for 
the most part quiet, orderly, obedient citizens, family 
men broken by adversity, elderly youths who had failed 
to place themselves in life, and people who had seen bet- 
ter days. Mildness was the prevailing character; mild 
mirth and mild endurance. In a word, I was not tak- 
ing part in an impetuous and conquering sally, such as 
swept over Mexico or Siberia, but found myself, like 
Marmion, "in the lost battle, borne down by the flying.^' 
Labouring mankind had in the last years, and through- 
out Great Britain, sustained a prolonged and crushing 
series of defeats. I had heard vaguely of these reverses; 
of whole streets of houses standing deserted by the Tyne,* 
the cellar-doors broken and removed for firewood; of 
homeless men loitering at the street-corners of Glasgow 
with their chests beside them; of closed factories, useless 
•strikes, and starving girls. But I had never taken them 
home to me or represented these distresses livingly to my 
* A river iji northern England. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 59 

imagination. A turn of the market may be a calamity 
as disastrous as the French retreat from Moscow; but it 
hardly lends itself to lively treatment, and makes a tri- 
fling figure in the morning papers. We may struggle as 
we please, we are not born economists. The individual 
is more affecting than the mass. It is by the scenic ac- 
cidents, and the appeal to the carnal eye, that for the 
most part we grasp the significance of tragedies. Thus 
it was only now, when I found myself involved in the 
rout, that I began to appreciate how sharp had been the 
battle. We were a company of the rejected; the drunken, 
the incompetent, the weak, the prodigal, all who had 
been unable to prevail against circumstances in the one 
land, were now fleeing pitifully to another; and though 
one or two might still succeed, all had already failed. 
We were a shipful of failures, the broken men of Eng- 
land. Yet it must not be supposed that these people ex- 
hibited depression. The scene, on the contrary, was 
cheerful. Not a tear was shed on board the vessel. All 
were full of hope for the future, and showed an inclination 
to innocent gaiety. Some were heard to sing, and all be- 
gan to scrape acquaintance with small jests and ready 
laughter. 

The children found each other out like dogs, and ran 
about the decks scraping acquaintance after their fash- 
ion also. "WTiat do you call your mither?'^ I heard 
one ask. ^' Mawmaw,^^ was the reply, indicating, I fancy, 
a shade of difference in the social scale. When people 
pass each other on the high seas of life at so early an age, 
the contact is but slight, and the relation more like what 
we may imagine to be the friendship of flies than that of 
men; it is so quickly joined, so easily dissolved, so open 
in its communications and so devoid of deeper human 
qualities. The children, I observed, were all in a band, 
and as thick as thieves at a fair, while their elders weret 



60 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

still ceremoniously manoeuvring on the outskirts of ac- 
quaintance. The sea, the ship, and the. seamen were 
soon as familiar as home to these half-conscious little 
ones. It was odd to hear them, throughout the voyage, 
employ shore words to designate portions of the vessel. 
'' Go Vay doon to yon dyke,'^ I heard one say, probably 
meaning the bulwark. I often had my heart in my 
mouth, watching them climb into the shrouds or on the 
rails, while the ship went swinging through the waves; 
and I admired and envied the courage of their mothers, 
who sat by in the sun and looked on with composure at 
these perilous feats. " He '11 maybe be a sailor,'' I heard 
one remark; "now 's the time to learn." I had been on 
the point of running forward to interfere, but stood back 
at that, reproved. Very few in the more delicate classes 
have the nerve to look upon the peril of one dear to them; 
but the life of poorer folk, where necessity is so much 
more immediate and imperious, braces even a mother to 
this extreme of endurance. And perhaps, after all, it is 
better that the lad should break his neck than that you 
should break his spirit. 

And since I am here on the chapter of the children, I 
must mention one little fellow, whose family belonged 
to Steerage No. 4 and 5, and who, wherever he went, 
was like a strain of music round the ship. He was an 
ugly, merry, unbreeched child of three, his lint white 
hair in a tangle, his face smeared with suet and treacle; 
but he ran to and fro with so natural a step, and fell and 
picked himself up again with such grace and good- 
humour, that he might fairly be called beautiful when he 
was in motion. To meet him, crowing with laughter 
and beating an accompaniment to his own mirth with 
a tin spoon upon a tin cup, was to meet a little triumph 
of the human species. Even when his mother and the 
rest of his family lay sick and prostrate around him, he 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 61 

sat upright in their midst and sang aloud in the pleasant 
heartlessness of infancy. 

Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men made 
but a few advances. We discussed the probable dura- 
tion of the voyage, we exchanged pieces of information, 
naming our trades, what we hoped to find in the new 
world, or what we were fleeing from in the old; and, 
above all, we condoled together over the food and the 
vileness of the steerage. One or two had been so near 
famine that you may say they had run into the ship with 
the devil at their heels; and to these all seemed for the 
best in the best of possible steamers. But the majority 
were hugely discontented. Coming as they did from a 
country in so low a state as Great Britain, many of them 
from Glasgow, which commercially speaking was as good 
as dead, and many having long been out of work, I 
was surprised to find them so dainty in their notions. 
I myself lived almost exclusively on bread, porridge, and 
soup, precisely as it was supplied to them, and found it, 
if not luxurious, at least suflBcient. But these working 
men were loud in their outcries. It was not "food for 
human beings,^^ it was "only fit for pigs,'^ it was "a dis- 
grace.^^ Many of them lived almost entirely upon bis- 
cuit, others on their own private supplies, and some paid 
extra for better rations from the ship. This marvellously 
changed my notion of the degree of luxury habitual to 
the artisan. I was prepared to hear him grumble, for 
grumbling is the traveller's pastime; but I was not pre- 
pared to find him turn away from a diet which was pal- 
atable to myself. Words I should have disregarded, or 
taken with a liberal allowance; but when a man prefers 
dry biscuit there can be no question of the sincerity of 
his disgust. 

With one of their complaints I could most heartily 
sympathise. A single night of the steerage had filled 



62 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

them with horror. I had myself suffered, even in my 
decent second-cabin berth, from the lack of air; and as 
the night promised to be fine and quiet, I determined to 
sleep on deck, and advised all who complained of their 
quarters to follow my example. I daresay a do^en of 
others agreed to do so, and I thought we should have 
been quite a party. Yet, when I brought up my rug 
about seven bells, there was no one to be seen but the 
watch. That chimerical terror of good night-air, which 
makes men close their windows, list their doors, and 
seal themselves up with their own poisonous exhala- 
tions, had sent all these healthy workmen down below. 
One would think we had been brought up in a fever 
country; yet in England the most malarious districts are 
in the bedchambers. 

I felt saddened at this defection, and yet half pleased 
to have the night so quietly to myself. The wind had^ 
hauled a little ahead on the starboard bow, and was dry 
but chilly. I found a shelter near the fire-hole, and made 
myself snug for the night. The ship moved over the 
uneven sea with a gentle and cradling movement. The 
ponderous, organic labours of the engine in her bowels 
occupied the mind, and prepared it for slumber. From 
time to time a heavier lurch would disturb me as I lay, 
and recall me to the obscure borders of consciousness; 
or I heard, as it were through a veil, the clear note of the 
clapper on the brass and the beautiful sea-cry, "AlFs 
well!'^ I know nothing, whether for poetry or music, 
that can surpass the effect of these two syllables in the 
darkness of a night at sea. 

The day dawned fairly enough, and during the early 
part we had some pleasant hours to improve acquaint- 
ance in the open air; but towards nightfall the wind 
freshened, the rain began to fall, and the sea rose so high 
that it was diflficult to keep one's footing on the deck. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 63 

I have spoken of our concerts. We were indeed a musi- 
cal ship's company, and cheered our way into exile with 
the fiddle, the accordion, and the songs of all nations. 
Good, bad, or indifferent — Scottish, English, Irish, Rus- 
sian, German or Norse, — the songs were received with 
generous applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very 
spiritedly rendered in a powerful Scottish accent, varied 
the proceedings; and once we sought in vain to dance a 
quadrille, eight men of us together, to the music of the 
violin. The performers were all humorous, frisky fel- 
lows, who loved to cut capers in private life; but as soon 
as they were arranged for the dance, they conducted 
themselves like so many mutes at a funeral. I have never 
seen decorum pushed so far; and as this was not expected, 
the quadrille was soon whistled down, and the dancers 
departed under a cloud. Eight Frenchmen, even eight 
Englishmen from another rank of society, would have 
dared to make some fun for themselves and the specta- 
tors; but the working man, when sober, takes an extreme 
and even melancholy view of personal deportment. A 
fifth-form school-boy is not more careful of dignity. He 
dares not be comical; his fun must escape from him 
unprepared, and above all, it must be unaccompanied 
by any physical demonstration. I like his society under 
most circumstances, but let me never again join with 
him in public gambols. 

But the impulse to sing was strong, and triumphed 
over modesty and even the inclemencies of sea and sky. 
On this rough Saturday night, we got together by the 
main deck-house, in a place sheltered from the wind 
and rain. Some clinging to a ladder which led to the 
hurricane deck, and the rest knitting arms or taking 
hands, we made a ring to support the women in the vio- 
lent lurching of the ship; and when we were thus dis- 
posed, sang to our heart's content. Some of the songs 



64 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

were appropriate to the scene; others strikingly the re- 
verse. Bastard doggrel of the music-hall, such as, 
*' Around her splendid form, I weaved the magic circle,'' 
sounded bald, bleak, and pitifully silly. "We don't 
want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do," was in some 
measure saved by the vigour and unanimity with which 
the chorus was thrown forth into the night. I observed 
a Platt-Deutsch mason, entirely innocent of English, 
adding heartily to the general effect. And perhaps the 
German mason is but a fair example of the sincerity 
with which the song was rendered; for nearly all with 
whom I conversed upon the subject were bitterly op- 
posed to war, and attributed their own misfortunes, and 
frequently their own taste for whisky, to the campaigns 
in Zululand and Afghanistan. 

Every now and again, however, some song that 
touched the pathos of our situation was given forth; 
and you could hear by the voices that took up the bur- 
den how the sentiment came home to each. "The 
Anchor's Weighed" was true for us. We were indeed 
"Rocked on the bosom of the stormy deep.'* How 
many of us could say w^ith the singer, " I 'm lonely to- 
night, love, without you,'* or "Go, some one, and tell 
them from me, to write me a letter from home!" And 
when was there a more appropriate moment for "Auld 
Lang Syne" than now, when the land, the friends, and 
the affections of that mingled but beloved time were 
fading and fleeing behind us in the vessel's wake? It 
pointed forward to the hour when these labours should 
be overpast, to the return voyage, and to many a meet- 
ing in the sanded inn, when those who had parted in 
the spring of youth should again drink a cup of kindness 
in their age. Had not Burns contemplated emigration, 
I scarce believe he would have found that note. 

All Sunday the weather remained wild and cloudy; 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 66 

many were prostrated by sickness; only five sat down to 
tea in the second cabin, and two of these departed 
abruptly ere the meal was at an end. The Sabbath was 
observed strictly by the majority of the emigrants. I 
heard an old woman express her surprise that " the ship 
didna gae doon/' as she saw some one pass her with 
a chess-board on the holy day. Some sang Scottish 
psalms. Many went to service, and in true Scottish 
fashion came back ill pleased with their divine. "I 
'didna think he was an experienced preacher/^ said one 
girl to me. 

It was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at night, by 
six bells, although the wind had not yet moderated, the 
clouds were all wrecked and blown away behind the 
rim of the horizon, and the stars came out thickly over- 
head. I saw Venus burning as steadily and sweetly 
across this hurly-burly of the winds and waters as ever 
at home upon the summer w^oods. The engine pounded, 
the screw tossed out of the water with a roar, and shook 
the ship from end to end; the bows battled with loud re- 
ports against the billows: and as I stood in the lee-scup- 
pers and looked up to where the funnel leaned out, over 
my head, vomiting smoke, and the black and monstrous 
topsails blotted, at each lurch, a different crop of stars, 
it seemed as if all this trouble were a thing of small ac- 
count, and that jusl above the mast reigned peace im- 
broken and eternal. 



STEERAGE SCENES 

Our companion (Steerage No. 2 and 3) was a favour- 
ite resort. Down one flight of stairs there was a com- 
paratively large open space, the center occupied by a 
hatchway, which made a convenient seat for about 



66 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

twenty persons, while barrels, coils of rope, and the car- 
penter's bench afforded perches for perhaps as many 
more. The canteen, or steerage bar, was on one side 
of the stair; on the other, a no less attractive spot, the 
cabin of the indefatigable interpreter. I have seen peo- 
ple packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, and 
many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, 
when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must 
go to roost. 

It had been rumoured since Friday that there was a 
fiddler aboard, who lay sick and unmelodious in Steer- 
age No. 1 ; and on the Monday forenoon, as I came down 
the companion, I was saluted by something in Straths- 
pey^ time. A white-faced Orpheus was cheerily play- 
ing to an audience of white-faced women. It was as 
much as he could do to play, and some of his hearers 
were scarce able to sit; yet they had crawled from their 
bunks at the first experimental flourish, and found bet- 
ter than medicine in the music. Some of the heaviest 
heads began to nod in time, and a degree of animation 
looked from some of the palest eyes. Humanly speaking, 
it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, even 
badly, than to write huge works upon recondite sub- 
jects. What could Mr. Darwin have done for these sick 
women? But this fellow scraped away; and the world 
was positively a better place for all who heard him. We 
have yet to understand the economical value of these 
mere accomplishments. I told the fiddler he w^as a 
happy man, carrying happiness about with him in his 
fiddle-case, and he seemed alive to the fact. 

" It is a privilege," I said. He thought a while upon 
the word, turning it over in his Scots head, and then an- 
swered with conviction, "Yes, a privilege." 

That night I was summoned by "Merrily danced the 

^ A dance for two people, or a lively tune adapted to such a dance. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 67 

Quaker^s wife^^ into the companion of Steerage No. 4 
and 5. This was, properly speaking, but a strip across 
a deck-house, lit by a sickly lantern which swung to 
and fro with the motion of the ship. Through the open 
slide-door we had a glimpse of a grey night sea, with 
patches of phosphorescent foam flying, swift as birds, 
into the wake, and the horizon rising and falling as the 
vessel rolled to the wind. In the center the companion 
ladder plunged down sheerly like an open pit. Below, 
on the first landing, and lighted by another lamp, lads 
and lasses danced, not more than three at a time for lack 
of space, in jigs and reels and hornpipes. Above, on 
either side, there was a recess railed with iron, perhaps 
two feet wide and four long, which stood for orchestra 
and seats of honour. In the one balcony, five slatternly 
Irish lasses sat woven in a comely group. In the other 
was posted Orpheus, his body, which was convulsively 
in motion, forming an odd contrast to his somnolent, 
imperturbable Scots face. His brother, a dark man with 
a vehement, interested countenance, who made a god 
of the fiddler, sat by with open mouth, drinking in the 
general admiration and throwing out remarks to kin- 
dle it. 

"That ^s a bonny hornpipe now," he would say, "it ^s 
a great favourite with performers; they dance the sand 
dance to it." And he expounded the sand dance. Then 
suddenly, it would be a long "Hush!" with uplifted 
finger and glowing, supplicating eyes; "he^s going to 
play * Auld Robin Gray' on one string!" And through- 
out this excruciating movement, — " On one string, that's 
on one string!" he kept crying. I would have given 
something myself that it had been on none; but the hear- 
ers were much awed. I called for a tune or two, and 
thus introduced myself to the notice of the brother, who 
directed his talk to me for some little while, keeping, I 



68 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

need hardly mention, true to his topic, like the seamen 
to the star. " He 's grand of it/' he said confidentially. 
" His master was a music-hall man/^ Indeed the music- 
hall man had left his mark, for our fiddler was ignorant 
of many of our best old airs; "Logic o' Buchan,'' for in- 
stance, he only knew as a quick, jigging figure in a set 
of quadrilles, and had never heard it called by name. 
Perhaps, after all, the brother was the more interesting 
performer of the two. I have spoken with him after- 
wards repeatedly, and found him always the same quick, 
fiery bit of a man, not without brains; but he never 
showed to such advantage as when he was thus squir- 
ing the fiddler into public note. There is nothing more 
becoming than a genuine admiration; and it shares this 
with love, that it does not become contemptible although 
misplaced. 

The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space 
was almost impracticably small; and the Irish wenches 
combined the extreme of bashfulness about this inno- 
cent display with a surprising impudence and roughness 
of address. Most often, either the fiddle lifted up its 
voice unheeded, or only a couple of lads would be foot- 
ing it and snapping fingers on the landing. And such 
was the eagerness of the brother to display all the ac- 
quirements of his idol, and such the sleepy indifference 
of the performer, that the tune would as often as not be 
changed, and the hornpipe expire into a ballad before 
the dancers had cut half a dozen shuffles. 

In the meantime, however, the audience had been 
growing more and more numerous every moment; there 
was hardly standing-room round the top of the com- 
panion; and the strange instinct of the race moved some 
of the new-comers to close both the doors, so that the 
atmosphere grew insupportable. It was a good place, 
as the saying is, to leave. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 69 

The wind hauled ahead with a head sea. By ten at 
night heavy sprays were flying and drumming over the 
forecastle; the companion of Steerage No. 1 had to be 
closed, and the door of communication through the sec- 
ond cabin thrown open. Either from the convenience 
of the opportunity, or because we had already a num- 
ber of acquaintances in that part of the ship, Mr. Jones 
and I paid it a late visit. Steerage No. 1 is shaped like 
an isosceles triangle, the sides opposite the equal angles 
bulging outward with the contour of the ship. It is 
lined with eight pens of sixteen bunks apiece, four bunks 
below and four above on either side. At night the place 
is lit with two lanterns, one to each table. As the 
steamer beat on her way among the rough billows, the 
light passed through violent phases of change, and was 
thrown to and fro and up and down with startling swift- 
ness. You were tempted to wonder, as you looked, how 
so thin a glimmer could control and disperse such solid 
blackness. When Jones and I entered we found a little 
company of our acquaintances seated together at the tri- 
angular foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more 
dismal circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The 
motion here in the ship's nose was very violent; the up- 
roar of the sea often overpoweringly loud. The yellow 
flicker of the lantern spun round and round and tossed 
the shadows in masses. The air was hot, but it struck 
a chill from its f cetor. From all round in the dark bunks, 
the scarcely human noises of the sick joined into a kind 
of farmyard chorus. In the midst, these five friends of 
mine were keeping up what heart they could in company. 
Singing was their refuge from discomfortable thoughts 
and sensations. One piped, in feeble tones, "Oh why 
left I my hame?'' which seemed a pertinent question in 
the circumstances. Another, from the invisible horrors 
of a pen where he lay dog-sick upon the upper shelf, 



70 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

found courage, in a blink of his sufferings, to give us 
several verses of the "Death of Nelson'^; and it was odd 
and eerie to hear the chorus breathe feebly from all sorts 
of dark corners, and "this day has done his dooty'^ rise 
and fall and be taken up again in this dim inferno, to an 
accompaniment of plunging, hollow-sounding bows and 
the rattling spray-showers overhead. 

All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness 
had interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to 
sing they were tongue-tied. There was present, how- 
ever, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful nationality, 
being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but 
of surprising clearness of conviction on the highest prob- 
lems. He had gone nearly beside himself on the Sun- 
day, because of a general backwardness to indorse his 
definition of mind as "a living, thinking substance which 
cannot be felt, heard, or seen^' — nor, I presume, although 
he failed to mention it, smelt. Now he came forward in 
a pause with another contribution to our culture. 

"Just by way of change,'^ said he, "I'll ask you a 
Scripture riddle. There's profit in them too/' he added 
ungrammatically. 

This was the riddle — 

C and P 

Did agree 

To cut down C; 

But C and P 

Could not agree 

Without the leave of G. 

All the people cried to see 

The crueltie 

Of C and P. 

Harsh are the words of Mercury after the songs of 
Apollo! We were a long while over the problem, shak- 
ing our heads and gloomily wondering how a man could 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 71 

be* such a fool; but at length he put us out of suspense 
and divulged the fact that C and P stood for Caiaphas 
and Pontius Pilate. 

I think it must have been the riddle that settled us, 
but the motion and the close air likewise hurried our 
departure. We had not been gone long, we heard next 
morning, ere two or even three out of the five fell sick. 
We thought it little wonder on the whole, for the sea 
kept contrary all night, I now made my bed upon the 
second cabin floor, where, although I ran the risk of be- 
ing stepped upon, I had a free current of air, more or 
less vitiated indeed, and running only from steerage to 
steerage, but at least not stagnant; and from this couch, 
as well as the usual sounds of a rough night at sea, the 
hateful coughing and retching of the sick and the sobs 
of children, I heard a man run wild with terror beseech- 
ing his friend for encouragement. "The ship's going 
down!" he cried with a thrill of agony. "The ship's 
going down!" he repeated, now in a blank whisper, now 
with his voice rising towards a sob; and his friend might 
reassure him, reason with him, joke at him — all was in 
vain, and the old cry came back, "The ship's going 
down!" There was something panicky and catching in 
the emotion of his tones; and I saw in a clear flash what, 
an involved and hideous tragedy was a disaster to an emi- 
grant ship. If this whole parishful of people came no 
more to land, into how many houses would the news- 
paper carry woe, and what a great part of the web of our 
corporate human life would be rent across for ever! 

The next morning when I came on deck I found a new 
world indeed. The wind was fair; the sun mounted 
into a cloudless heaven; through great dark blue seas 
the ship cut a swath of curded foam. The horizon was 
dotted all day with companionable sails, and the sun 
shone pleasantly on the long, heaving deck. 



72 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

We had many fine-weather diversions to beguile the 
time. There was a single chess-board and a single pack 
of cards. Sometimes as many as twenty of us would be 
playing dominoes for love. Feats of dexterity, puzzles 
for the intelligence, some arithmetical, some of the same 
order as the old problem of the fox and goose and cab- 
bage, were always welcome; and the latter, I observed, 
more popular as well as more conspicuously well done 
than the former. We had a regular daily competition 
to guess the vesseFs progress; and twelve o^clock, when 
the result was published in the wheel-house, came to be 
a moment of considerable interest. But the interest w^as 
unmixed. Not a bet was laid upon our guesses. From 
the Clyde to Sandy Hook I never heard a wager offered 
or taken. We had, besides, romps in plenty. Puss in 
the Corner, which we had rebaptized, in more manly 
style. Devil and four Corners, was my own favourite 
game; but there were many who preferred another, the 
humour of which was to box a person's ears until he 
found out who had cuffed him. 

This Tuesday morning we were all delighted with the 
change of weather, and in the highest possible spirits. 
We got in a cluster like bees, sitting between each other's 
feet under lee of the deck-houses. Stories and laughter 
went around. The children climbed about the shrouds. 
White faces appeared for the first time, and began to 
take on colour from the wind. I was kept hard at work 
making cigarettes for one amateur after another, and my 
less than moderate skill was heartily admired. Lastly, 
down sat the fiddler in our midst and began to discourse 
his reels, and jigs, and ballads, with now and then a voice 
or two to take up the air and throw in the interest of 
human speech. 

Through this merry and good-hearted scene there came 
three cabin passengers, a gentleman and two young la- 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 73 

dies, picking their way with little gracious titters of in- 
dulgence, and a Lady-Bountiful air about nothing, which 
galled me to the quick. I have little of the radical in 
social questions, and have always nourished an idea 
that one person was as good as another. But I began 
to be troubled by this episode. It was astonishing what 
insults these people managed to convey by their presence. 
They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. Their 
eyes searched- us all over for tatters and incongruities, 
A laugh was ready at their lips; but they were too well- 
mannered to indulge it in our hearing. Wait a bit, till 
they were all back in the saloon, and then hear how wit- 
tily they would depict the manners of the steerage. We 
were in truth very innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly en- 
gaged, and there was no shadow of excuse for the sway- 
ing elegant superiority with which these damsels passed 
among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of their 
squire. Not a word was said; only when they were 
gone Mackay sullenly damned their impudence under 
his breath; but we were all conscious of an icy influence 
and a dead break in the course of our enjoyment. 



STEERAGE TYPES 

We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all 
the world like a beggar in a print by Callot;^ one-eyed, 
with great, splay crow's-feet round the sockets; a knotty 
squab nose coming down over his mustache; a miracu- 
lous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages long ago; 
an alpaca coat in its last sleeves; and, without hyperbole, 
no buttons to his trousers. Even in these rags and tat- 
ters, the man twinkled all over with impudence like a 
piece of sham jewellery; and I have heard him offer a situ- 
1 A French engraver (1593-1635). 



74 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ation to one of his fellow-passengers with the air of a 
lord. Nothing could overlie such a fellow; a kind of 
base success was written on his brow. He was then in 
his ill days; but I can imagine him in Congress with his 
mouth full of bombast and sawder.^ As we moved in 
the same circle, I was brought necessarily into his so- 
ciety. I do not think I ever heard him say anything 
that was true, kind, or interesting; but there was enter- 
tainment in the man's demeanour. You might call him 
a half-educated Irish Tigg.^ 

Pur Russian made a remarkable contrast to this im- 
possible fellow. Rumours and legends were current in 
the steerages about his antecedents. Some said he was 
a Nihilist escaping; others set him down for a harmless 
spendthrift, who had squandered fifty thousand roubles, 
and whose father had now despatched him to America 
by way of penance. Either tale might flourish in se- 
curity; there was no contradiction to be feared, for the 
hero spoke not one word of English. I got on with him 
lumberingly enough in broken German, and learnt from 
his own lips that he had been an apothecary. He car- 
ried the photograph of his betrothed in a pocket-book, 
and remarked that it did not do her justice. The cut 
of his head stood out from among the passengers with 
an air of startling strangeness. The first natural in- 
stinct was to take him for a desperado; but although the 
features, to our Western eyes, had a barbaric and un- 
homely cast, the eye both reassured and touched. It 
was large and very dark and soft, with an expression of 
dumb endurance, as if it had often looked on desperate 
circumstances and never looked on them without reso- 
lution. 



^ A slang expression, meaning flattery. 

2 Montague Tigg is a self-reliant but. impecunious rascal in Dickr 
ens's Martin ChuzzlewiL, 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 75 

He cried out when I used the word. "No, no/* he 
said, "not resolution/' 

"The resolution to endure/' I explained. 

And then he shrugged his shoulders, and said, ^^Ach, 
ja/' with gusto, like a man who had been flattered in 
his favourite pretensions. Indeed, he was always hinting 
at some secret sorrow; and his life, he said, had been 
one of unusual trouble and anxiety; so the legends of 
the steerage may have represented at least some shadow 
of the truth. Once, and once only, he sang a song at 
our concerts; standing forth without embarrassmerit, 
his great stature somewhat humped, his long arms fre- 
quently extended, his Kalmuck^ head thrown backward. 
It was a suitable piece of music, as deep as a cow's bel- 
low and wild like the White Sea. He was struck and 
charmed by the freedom and sociality of our manners. 
At home, he said, no one on a journey would speak to 
him, but those with whom he would not care to speak; 
thus unconsciously involving himself in the condemna- 
tion of his countrymen. But Russia was soon to be 
changed; the ice of the Neva was softening under the 
sun of civilization; the new ideas, ^^wie eine feine 
Violine,'^ ^ were audible among the big empty drum 
notes of Imperial diplomacy; and he looked to see a great 
revival, though with a somewhat indistinct and child- 
ish hope. 

We had a father and son who made a pair of Jacks-of- 
all-trades. It was the son who sang the " Death of Nel- 
son" under such contrarious circumstances. He was by 
trade a shearer of ship plates; but he could touch the 
organ, had led two choirs, and played the flute and pic- 
colo in a professional string band. His repertory of songs 
was, besides, inexhaustible, and ranged impartially from 

^ A broad, round head like those of the Kalmuck Tartars. 
^ Like the music of a fine violin. 



76 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the very best to the very worst within his reach. Nor 
did he seem to make the least distinction between these 
extremes, but would cheerfully follow up ^'Tom Bowling^' 
with "Around her splendid form/^ 

The father, an old, cheery, small piece of manhood, 
could do everything connected with tinwork from one 
end of the process to the other, use almost every car- 
penter's tool, and make picture frames to boot. ^*I sat 
down with silver plate every Sunday,'' said he, "and 
pictures on the wall. I have made enough money to be 
rolling in my carriage. Bat, sir," looking at me un- 
steadily with his bright rheumy eyes, "I was troubled 
with a drunken wife." He took a hostile view of matri- 
mony in consequence. "It's an old saying," he re- 
marked: "God made 'em, and the devil he mixed 'em." 

I think he was justified by his experience. It was a 
dreary story. He would bring home three pounds on 
Saturday, and on Monday all the clothes would be in 
pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave up a pay- 
ing contract, and contented himself with small and ill- 
paid jobs. "A bad job was as good as a good job for 
me," he said; "it all went the same way." Once the 
wife showed signs of amendment; she kept steady for 
weeks on end; it was again worth while to labour and 
to do one's best. The husband found a good situation 
some distance from home, and, to make a little upon 
every hand, started the wife in a cook-shop; the chil- 
dren were here and there, busy as mice; savings began 
to grow together in the bank, and the golden age of hope 
had returned again to that unhappy family. But one 
week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through with 
his work, came home on the Friday instead of the Satur- 
day, and there was his wife to receive him reeling drunk. 
He " took and gave her a pair o' black eyes," for which 
I pardon him, nailed up the cook-shop door, gave up 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 77 

his situation, and resigned himself to a life of poverty, 
with the workhouse at the end. As the children came 
to their full age they fled the house, and established them- 
selves in other countries; some did well, some not so well; 
but the father remained at home alone with his drunken 
wife, all his sound-hearted pluck and varied accomplish- 
ments depressed and negatived. 

Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had he 
broken the chain, and run from home like a school-boy ? 
I could not discover which; but here at least he was out 
on the adventure, and still one of the bravest and most 
youthful men on board. 

"Now, I suppose, I must put my old bones to work 
again,*^ said he; "but I can do a turn yet." 

And the son to whom he was going, I asked, was he 
not able to support him? 

" Oh yes,'' he replied. " But I 'm never happy with- 
out a job on hand. And I 'm stout; I can eat almost 
anything. You see no craze about me.'^ 

This tale of a drunken wife was paralleled on board 
by another of a drunken father. He was a capable man, 
with a good chance in life; but he had drunk up two 
thriving businesses like a bottle of sherry, and involved 
his sons along with him in ruin. Now they were on 
board with us, fleeing his disastrous neighbourhood. 

Total abstinence, like all ascetical conclusions, is un- 
friendly to the most generous, cheerful, and human parts 
of man; but it could have adduced many instances and 
arguments from among our ship's company. I was 
one day conversing with a kind and happy Scotsman, 
running to fat and perspiration in the physical, but with 
a taste for poetry and a genial sense of fun. I had asked 
him his hopes in emigrating. They were like those of 
so many others, vague and unfounded; times were bad 
at home; they were said to have a turn for the better in 



78 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the States; and a man could get on anywhere, he thought. 
That was precisely the weak point of his position; for if 
he could get on in America, why could he not do the same 
in Scotland? But I never had the courage to use that 
argument, though it was often on the tip of my tongue, 
and instead I agreed with him heartily, adding, with 
reckless originality, " If the man stuck to his work, and 
kept away from drink/^ 

"AhT' said he slowly, "the drink! You see, that's 
just my trouble/' 

He spoke with a simplicity that was touching, look- 
ing at me at the same time with something strange and 
timid in his eye, half-ashamed, half-sorry, like a good 
child who knows he should be beaten. You would have 
said he recognised a destiny to which he was born, and 
accepted the consequences mildly. Like the merchant 
Abudah,^ he was at the same time fleeing from his 
destiny and carrying it along with him, the whole at an 
expense of six guineas. 

As far as I saw, drink, idleness, and incompetency 
were the three- great causes of emigration, and for all of 
them, and drink first and foremost, this trick of getting 
transported overseas appears to me the silliest means of 
cure. You cannot run away from a weakness; you must 
some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why 
not now, and where you stand? Ccelum non animam.^ 
Change Glenlivet for Bourbon, and it is still whisky, 
only not so good. A sea-voyage will not give a man the 
nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration has to 
be done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the 

^ A rich merchant in the Rev. James Ridley's Tales of the Genii, 
who, seeking a talisman for perfect happiness, finds it in love of 
God and submission to His will. 

2 Ccelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt, " Those who 
cross the sea change only the climate, not their character," a quo- 
tation from Horace. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 79 

only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found 
in foreign lands, but in the heart itself. 

Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more 
contemptible than another; for each is but a result and 
outward sign of a soul tragically shipwrecked. In the 
majority of cases, cheap pleasure is resorted to by way 
of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth upon life 
with high and difiicult ambitions; he meant to be nobly 
good and nobly happy, though at as little pains as pos- 
sible to himself; and it is because all has failed in his 
celestial enterprise that you now behold him rolling in 
the garbage. Hence the comparative success of the tee- 
total pledge; because to a man who had nothing it sets 
at least a negative aim in life. Somewhat as prisoners 
beguile their days by taming a spider, the reformed 
drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining from in- 
toxicating drinks, and may live for that negation. There 
is something, at least, not to be done each day; and a cold 
triumph awaits him every evening. 

We had one on board with us, whom I have already 
referred to under the name of Mackay, who seemed to 
me not only a good instance of this failure in life of 
which we have been speaking, but a good type of the 
intelligence which here surrounded me. Physically he 
was a small Scotsman, standing a little back as though 
he were already carrying the elements of a corporation, 
and his looks somewhat marred by the smallness of 
his eyes. Mentally, he was endowed above the average. 
There were but few subjects on which he could not con- 
verse with understanding and a dash of wit; delivering 
himself slowly and with gusto, like a man who enjoyed 
his own sententiousness. He was a dry, quick, pertinent 
debater, speaking with a small voice, and swinging on 
his heels to launch and emphasise an argument. When 
he began a discussion, he could not bear to leave it off, 



80 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

but would pick the subject to the bone, without once 
relinquishing a point. An engineer by trade, Mackay 
believed in the unlimited perfectibility of all machines 
except the human machine. The latter he gave up with 
ridicule for a compound of carrion and perverse gases. 
He had an appetite for disconnected facts which I can 
only compare to the savage taste for beads. What is 
called information was indeed a passion with the man, 
and he not only delighted to receive it, but could pay 
you back in kind. 

With all these capabilities, here was Mackay, already 
no longer young, on his way to a new country, with no 
prospects, no money, and but little hope. He was al- 
most tedious in the cynical disclosures of his despair. 
''The ship may go down for me," he would say, "now 
or to-morrow\ I have nothing to lose and nothing to 
hope." And again: "I am sick of the whole damned 
performance." He was, like the kind little man already 
quoted, another so-called victim of the bottle. But 
Mackay was miles from publishing his weakness to the 
world; laid the blame of his failure on corrupt masters 
and a corrupt State policy; and after he had been one 
night overtaken and had played the buflfoon in his cups, 
sternly, though not without tact, suppressed all refer- 
ence to his escapade. It was a treat to see him manage 
this; the various jesters withered under his gaze, and you 
were forced to recognise in him a certain steely force, and 
a gift of command which might have ruled a senate. 

In truth it was not whisky that had ruined him; he 
was ruined long before for all good human purposes but 
conversation. His eyes were sealed by a cheap, school- 
book materialism. He could see nothing in the world 
but money and steam-engines. He did not know what 
you meant by the word happiness. He had forgotten 
the simple emotions of childhood, and perhaps never 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 81 

encountered the delights of youth. He believed in pro- 
duction, that useful figment of economy, as if it had 
been real like laughter; and production, without preju- 
dice to liquor, was his god and guide. One day he took 
me to task — a novel cry to me — upon the overpayment 
of literature. Literary men, he said, were more highly 
paid than artisans; yet the artisan made threshing-ma- 
chines and butter-churns, and the man of letters, except 
in the way of a few useful hand-books, made nothing 
worth the while. He produced a mere fancy article. 
Mackay's notion of a book was Hoppus^s Measurer. 
Now in my time I have possessed and even studied that 
work; but if I were to be left to-morrow on Juan Fer- 
nandez,^ Hoppus's is not the book that I should choose 
for my companion volume. 

I tried to fight the point with Mackay. I made him 
own that he had taken pleasure in reading books other- 
wise, to his view, insignificant; but he was too wary to 
advance a step beyond the admission. It was in vain 
for me to argue that here was pleasure ready-made and 
running from the spring, whereas his ploughs and but- 
ter-churns were but means and mechanisms to give men 
the necessary food and leisure before they start upon the 
search for pleasure; he jibbed and ran away from such 
conclusions. The thing was different, he declared, and 
nothing was serviceable but what had to do with food. 
^' Eat, eat, eat!'' he cried; " that's the bottom and the top.'* 
By an odd irony of circumstance, he grew so much inter- 
ested in this discussion that he let the hour slip by un- 
noticed and had to go without his tea. He had enough 
sense and humour, indeed he had no lack of either, to 
have chuckled over this himself in private; and even to 
me he referred to it with the shadow of a smile. 

^ A lonely island in the South Pacific, where Alexander Selkirk, the 
supposed original of Robinson Crusoe, remained alone for four years. 



82 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Mackay was a hot bigot. He would not hear of re- 
ligion. I have seen him waste hours of time in argu- 
ment with all sort of poor human creatures who under- 
stood neither him nor themselves, and he had had the 
boyishness to dissect and criticise even so small a mat- 
ter as the riddler's definition of mind. He snorted aloud 
with zealotry and the lust for intellectual battle. Any- 
thing, whatever it was, that seemed to him likely to dis- 
courage the continued passionate production of corn and 
steam-engines he resented like a conspiracy against the 
people. Thus, when I put in the plea for literature, that 
it was only in good books, or in the society of the good, 
that a man could get help in his conduct, he declared I 
was in a different world from him. "Damn my con- 
duct!" said he. " I have given it up for a bad job. My 
question is, 'Can I drive a nail?'" And he plainly 
looked upon me as one who was insidiously seeking to 
reduce the people's annual bellyful of corn and steam- 
engines. 

It may be argued that these opinions spring from the 
defect of culture; that a narrow and pinching w^ay of life 
not only exaggerates to a man the importance of mate- 
rial conditions, but indirectly, by denying him the neces- 
sary books and leisure, keeps his mind ignorant of larger 
thoughts; and that hence springs this overwhelming con- 
cern about diet, and hence the bald view of existence pro- 
fessed by Mackay. Had this been an English peasant 
the conclusion would be tenable. But Mackay had 
most of the elements of a liberal education. He had 
skirted metaphysical and mathematical studies. He had 
a thoughtful hold of what he knew, which would be ex- 
ceptional among bankers. He had been brought up in 
the midst of hot-house piety, and told, with incongru- 
ous pride, the story of his own brother's death-bed ec- 
stasies. Yet he had somehow failed to fulfil himself, 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 83 

and was adrift like a dead thing among external circum- 
stances, without hope or lively preference or shaping aim. 
And further, there seemed a tendency among many of 
his fellows to fall into the same blank and unlovely opin- 
ions. One thing, indeed, is not to be learned in Scot- 
land, and that is the way to be happy. Yet that is the 
whole of culture, and perhaps two-thirds of morality. 
Can it be that the Puritan school, by divorcing a man 
from nature, by thinning out his instincts, and setting a 
stamp of its disapproval on whole fields of human activity 
and interest, leads at last directly to material greed ? 

Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of 
simple pleasures next, if not superior, to virtue; and we 
had on board an Irishman who based his claim to the 
widest and most affectionate popularity precisely upon 
these two qualities, that he was natural and happy. He 
boasted a fresh colour, a tight little figure, unquenchable 
gaiety, and indefatigable good-will. His clothes puzzled 
the diagnostic mind, until you heard he had been once 
a private coachman, when they became eloquent and 
seemed a part of his biography. His face contained the 
rest, and, I fear, a prophecy of the future; the hawk's 
nose above accorded so ill with the pink baby's mouth 
below. His spirit and his pride belonged, you might 
say, to the nose; while it was the general shiftlessness 
expressed by the other that had thrown him from situa- 
tion to situation, and at length on board the emigrant 
ship. Barney ate, so to speak, nothing from the galley; 
his own tea, butter and eggs supported him throughout 
the voyage; and about mealtime you might often find 
him up to the elbows in amateur cookery. His was the 
first voice heard singing among all the passengers ; he was 
the first who fell to dancing. From Loch Foyle to Sandy 
Hook, there was not a piece of fun undertaken but there 
was Barney in the midst. 



84 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

You ought to have seen him when he stood up to sing 
at our concerts — his tight little figure stepping to and fro, 
and his feet shuffling to the air, his eyes seeking and be- 
stowing encouragement — and to have enjoyed the bow, 
so nicely calculated between jest and earnest, between 
grace and clumsiness, with which he brought each song 
to a conclusion. He was not only a great favourite 
among ourselves, but his songs attracted the lords of the 
saloon, who often leaned to hear him over the rails of the 
hurricane-deck. He was somewhat pleased, but not at 
all abashed by this attention; and one night, in the midst 
of his famous performance of " Billy Keogh," I saw him 
spin half round in a pirouette and throw an audacious 
wink to an old gentleman above. 

This was the more characteristic, as, for all his daffing^, 
he was a modest and very polite little fellow among our- 
selves. 

He would not have hurt the feelings of a fly, nor 
throughout the passage did he give a shadow of oflfence; 
yet he was always, by his innocent freedoms and love of 
fun, brought upon that narrow margin where politeness 
must be natural to walk without a fall. He was once 
seriously angry, and that in a grave, quiet manner, be- 
cause they supplied no fish on Friday; for Barney was a 
conscientious Catholic. He had likewise strict notions 
of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the 
women had retired, a young Scotsman struck up an in- 
decent song, Barney's drab clothes were immediately 
missing from the group. His taste was for the society 
of gentlemen, of whom, with the reader's permission, 
there was no lack in our five steerages and second cabin; 
and he avoided the rough and positive with a girlish 
shrinking. Mackay, partly from his superior powers of 
mind, which rendered him incomprehensible, partly 
* Foolish gaiety. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 85 

from his extreme opinions, was especially distasteful to 
the Irishman. I have seen him slink off with backward 
looks of terror and offended delicacy, while the other, 
in his witty, ugly way, had been professing hostility to 
God, and an extreme theatrical readiness to be ship- 
wrecked on the spot. These utterances hurt the little 
coachman's modesty like a bad word. 



THE SICK MAN 

One night Jones, the young O'Reilly, and myself were 
walking arm-in-arm and briskly up and down the deck. 
Six bells had rung; a head-wind blew chill and fitful, the 
fog was closing in with a sprinkle of rain, and the fog- 
whistle had been turned on, and now divided time with 
its unwelcome outcries, loud like a bull, thrilling and in- 
tense like a mosquito. Even the watch lay somewhere 
snugly out of sight. 

For some time we observed something lying black 
and huddled in the scuppers, which at last heaved a lit- 
tle and moaned aloud. We ran to the rails. An elderly 
man, but whether passenger or seaman it was impossible 
in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling on his belly 
in the wet scuppers, and kicking feebly with his out- 
spread toes. We asked him what was amiss, and he 
replied incoherently, with a strange accent and in a voice 
unmanned by terror, that he had cramp in the stomach, 
that he had been ailing all day, had seen the doctor twice, 
and had walked the deck against fatigue till he was over- 
mastered and had fallen where we found him. 

Jones remained by his side, while O'Reilly and I hur- 
ried off to seek the doctor. We knocked in vain at the 
doctor's cabin; there came no reply; nor could we find 
any one to guide us. It was no time for delicacy; so we 



86 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ran once more forward; and I, whipping up a ladder and 
touching my hat to the oflBcer of the watch, addressed 
him as politely as I could: 

"I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man lying bad 
with cramp in the lee scuppers; and I can't find the 
doctor." 

He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and then, 
somewhat harshly, "Well, / can't leave the bridge, my 
man," said he. 

"No, sir; but you can tell me what to do," I returned. 

"Is it one of the crew?" he asked. 

" I believe him to be a fireman," I replied. 

I daresay oflScers are much annoyed by complaints 
and alarmist information from their freight of human 
creatures; but certainly, whether it was the idea that the 
sick man was one of the crew, or from something con- 
ciliatory in my address, the officer in question was imme- 
diately relieved and mollified; and speaking in a voice 
much freer from constraint, advised me to find a steward 
and despatch him in quest of the doctor, who would now 
be in the smoking-room over his pipe. 

One of the stewards was often enough to be found 
about this hour down our companion. Steerage No. 2 
and 3; that was his smoking-room of a night. Let me 
call him Blackwood. O'Reilly and I rattled down the 
companion, breathing hurry; and in his shirt-sleeves and 
perched across the carpenter's bench upon one thigh, 
found Blackwood; a neat, bright, dapper, Glasgow- 
looking man, with a bead of an eye and a rank twang 
in his speech. I forget who was with him, but the pair 
were enjoying a deliberate talk over their pipes. I dare 
say he was tired with his day's work, and eminently 
comfortable at that moment; and the truth is, I did not 
stop to consider his feelings, but told my story in a 
breath. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 87 

"Steward/' said I, "there's a man lying bad with 
cramp, and I can't find the doctor." 

He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but with a 
black look that is the prerogative of man; and taking his 
pipe out of his mouth 

" That 's none of my business/' said he. " I don't 
care/' 

I could have strangled the little ruffian where he sat. 
The thought of his cabin civility and cabin tips filled me 
with indignation. I glanced at O'Reilly; he was pale 
and quivering, and looked like assault and battery, every 
inch of him. But we had a better card than violence. ' 

"You will have to make it your business," said I, 
" for I am sent to you by the ofiicer on the bridge." 

Blackwood was fairly tripped. He made no answer, 
but put out his pipe, gave me one murderous look, and 
set off upon his errand strolling. From that day for- 
ward, I should say, he improved to me in courtesy, as 
though he had repented his evil speech and were anxious 
to leave a better impression. 

When we got on deck again, Jones was still beside the 
sick man; and two or three late stragglers had gathered 
round and were offering suggestions. One proposed to 
give the patient water, which was promptly negatived. 
Another bade us hold him up; he himself prayed to be 
let lie; but as it was at least as well to keep him off the 
streaming decks, O'Reilly and I supported him between 
us. It was only by main force that we did so, and neither 
an easy nor an agreeable duty; for he fought in his par- 
oxysms like a frightened child, and moaned miserably 
when he resigned himself to our control. 

" O let me lie!" he pleaded. *' I '11 no' get better any- 
way." And then, with a moan that went to my heart, 
"O why did I come upon this miserable journey?" 

I was reminded of the song which I had heard a little 



88 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

while before in the close, tossing steerage: "O why left 
I my hame?^^ 

Meantime Jones, relieved of his immediate charge, 
had gone off to the galley, where we could see a light. 
There he found a belated cook scouring pans by the 
radiance of two lanterns, and one of these he sought to 
borrow. The scullion was backward. ^'Was it one of 
the crew?^' he asked. And when Jones, smitten with 
my theory, had assured that it was a fireman, he reluc- 
tantly left his scouring and came towards us at an easy 
pace, with one of the lanterns swinging from his finger. 
The light, as it reached the spot, showed us an elderly 
man, thick-set, and grizzled with years; but the shift- 
ing and coarse shadows concealed from us the expres- 
sion and even the design of his face. 

So soon as the cook set eyes on him he gave a sort of 
whistle. 

*^It^s only a passenger!" said he; and turning about, 
made, lantern and all, for the galley. 

" He ^s a man anyway,^^ cried Jones in indignation. 

"Nobody said he was a woman,'^ said a gruff voice, 
which I recognised for that of the bo's^un. 

All this while there was no word of Blackwood or the 
doctor; and now the officer came to our side of the ship 
and asked, over the hurricane-deck rails, if the doctor 
were not yet come. We told him not. 

"No?^^ he repeated with a breathing of anger; and we 
saw him hurry aft in person. 

Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance 
deliberately enough and examined our patient with the 
lantern. He made little of the case, had the man brought 
aft to the dispensary, dosed him, and sent him forward 
to his bunk. Two of his neighbours in the steerage had 
now come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow that 
such "a fine cheery body" should be sick; and these. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 89 

claiming a sort of possession, took him entirely under 
their own care. The drug had probably relieved him, 
for he struggled no more, and was led along plaintive and 
patient, but protesting. His heart recoiled at the thought 
of the steerage. "O let me lie down upon the bieldy^ 
side,'' he cried; "O dinna take me down!" And again: 
"O why did ever I come upon this miserable voyage?'' 
And yet once more, with a gasp and a wailing prolonga- 
tion of the fourth word: ^*I had no call to come." But 
there he was; and by the doctor's orders and the kind 
force of his two shipmates disappeared down the com- 
panion of Steerage No. 1 into the den allotted him. 

At the foot of our own companion, just where I found 
Blackwood, Jones and the bo's'un were now engaged in 
talk. This last was a gruff, cruel-looking seaman, who 
must have passed near half a century upon the seas; 
square-headed, goat-bearded, with heavy blond eye- 
brows, and an eye without radiance, but inflexibly steady 
and hard. I had not forgotten his rough speech; but I 
remembered also that he had helped us about the lan- 
tern; and now seeing him in conversation with Jones, 
and being choked with indignation, I proceeded to blow 
off my steam. 

"Well," said I, "I make you my compliments upon 
your steward," and furiously narrated what had happened. 

" I 've nothing to do with him," replied the bo's'un. 
"They're all alike. They wouldn't mind if they saw 
you all lying dead one upon the top of another." 

This was enough. A very little humanity went a long 
way with me after the experience of the evening. A 
sympathy grew up at once between the bo's'un and my- 
self; and that night, and during the next few days, I 
learned to appreciate him better. He was a remark- 
able type, and not at all the kind of man you find in 

1 Sheltered. 



90 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

books. He had been at Sebastopol^ under English 
colours; and again in a States ship, "after the Alabama,'^ 
and praying God we shouldn't find her/' He was a 
high Tory and a high Englishman. No manufacturer 
could have held opinions more hostile to the working- 
man and his strikes. " The workmen/' he said, " think 
nothing of their country. They think of nothing but 
themselves. They 're damned greedy, selfish fellows.'^ 
He would not hear of the decadence of England. " They 
say they send us beef from America," he argued; "but 
who pays for it ? All the money in the world 's in Eng- 
land." The Royal Navy was the best of possible ser- 
vices, according to him. " Anyway the oflBcers are gentle- 
men," said he; "and you can't get hazed to death by a 

damned non-commissioned as you can in the army." 

Among nations, England was the first; then came France. 
He respected the French navy and liked the French peo- 
ple; and if he were forced to make a new choice in life, 
"by God, he would try Frenchmen!" For all his looks 
and rough, cold manners, I observed that children were 
never frightened by him; they divined him at once to be a 
friend; and one night when he had chalked his hand and 
went about stealthily setting his mark on people's clothes, 
it was incongruous to hear this formidable old salt chuck- 
ling over his boyish monkey trick. 

In the morning, my first thought was of the sick man. 
I was afraid I should not recognise him, so baffling had 
been the light of the lantern; and found myself unable to 
decide if he were Scots, English, or Irish. He had cer- 
tainly employed north-country words and elisions; but 
the accent and the pronunciation seemed unfamiliar and 
incongruous in my ear. 

^ A Russian fortress, chief storm-centre of the Crimean war. 
2 A famous Confederate privateer which raised havoc with North- 
ern commerce during the Civil War, 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 91 

To descend on- an empty stomach into Steerage No. 1, 
was an adventure that required some nerve. The stench 
was atrocious; each respiration tasted in the throat like 
some horrible kind of cheese; and the squalid aspect of 
the place was aggravated by so many people worming 
themselves into their clothes in the twilight of the bunks. 
You may guess if I was pleased, not only for him, but for 
myself also, when I heard that the sick man was better 
and had gone on deck. 

The morning was raw and foggy, though the sun suf- 
fused the fog with pink and amber; the fog-horn still blew, 
stertorous and intermittent; and to add to the discomfort, 
the seamen were just beginning to wash down the decks. 
But for a sick man this was heaven compared to the 
steerage. I found him standing on the hot-water pipe, 
just forward of the saloon deck-house. He was smaller 
than I had fancied, and plain-looking; but his face was 
distinguished by strange and fascinating eyes, limpid 
grey from a distance, but, when looked into, full of chang- 
ing colours and grains of gold. His manners were mild 
and uncompromisingly plain; and I soon saw that, when 
once started, he delighted to talk. His accent and lan- 
guage had been formed in the most natural way, since 
he was born in Ireland, had lived a quarter of a century 
on the banks of Tyne, and was married to a Scots wife. 
A fisherman in the season, he had fished the east coast 
from Fisherrow to Whitby. When the season was over, 
and the great boats, which required extra hands, were 
once drawn up on shore till the next spring, he worked 
as a labourer about chemical furnaces, or along the 
wharves unloading vessels. In this comparatively hum- 
ble way of life he had gathered a competence, and could 
speak of his comfortable house, his hayfield, and his 
garden. On this ship, where so many accomplished 
artisans were fleeing from starvation, he was present on 
a pleasure trip to visit a brother in New York. 



92 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Ere he started, he informed me, he had been warned 
against the steerage and the steerage fare, and recom- 
mended to bring with him a ham and tea and a spice loaf. 
But he laughed to scorn such counsels. " / *m not afraid,^' 
he had told his adviser; ''I 'II get on for ten days. I Ve 
not been a fisherman for nothing.^^ For it is no light 
matter, as he reminded me, to be in an open boat, per- 
haps waist-deep with herrings, day breaking with a scowl, 
and for miles on every hand lee-shores, unbroken, iron- 
bound, surf-beat, with only here and there an anchorage 
where you dare not lie, or a harbour impossible to enter 
with the wind that blows. The life of a North Sea fisher 
is one long chapter of exposure and hard work and in- 
sufficient fare; and even if he makes land at some bleak 
fisher port, perhaps the season is bad or his boat has been 
unlucky, and after fifty hours' unsleeping vigilance and 
toil, not a shop will give him credit for a loaf of bread. 
Yet the steerage of the emigrant ship had been too vile 
for the endurance of a man thus rudely trained. He 
had scarce eaten since he came on board, until the day 
before, when his appetite was tempted by some excellent 
pea-soup. We were all much of the same mind on board, 
and beginning with myself, had dined upon pea-soup not 
wisely but too well; only with him the excess had been 
punished, perhaps because he was weakened by former 
abstinence, and his first meal had resulted in a cramp. 
He had determined to live henceforth on biscuit; and 
when, two months later, he should return to England, to 
make the passage by saloon. The second cabin, after 
due inquiry, he scouted as another edition of the steerage. 

He spoke apologetically of his emotion when ilL " Ye 
see, I had no call to be here," said he; "and I thought 
it was by with me last night. I Ve a good house at home, 
and plenty to nurse me, and I had no real call to leave 
them.'' Speaking of the attentions he had received from 
his shipmates generally, " they were all so kind," he said. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 93 

" that there ^s none to mention/^ And except In so far as 
I might share in this, he troubled me with no reference 
to my services. 

But what affected me in the most lively manner was 
the w^ealth of this day-labourer, paying a two months' 
pleasure visit to the States, and preparing to return in 
the saloon, and the new testimony rendered by his story, 
not so much to the horrors of the steerage as to the 
habitual comfort of the working-classes. One foggy, 
frosty December evening, I encountered on Liberton 
Hill, near Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging home- 
ward from the fields. Our roads lay together, and it 
was natural that we should fall into talk. He was cov- 
ered with mud; an inoffensive, ignorant creature, who 
thought the Atlantic Cable was a secret contrivance of 
the masters the better to oppress labouring mankind; 
and I confess I was astonished to learn that he had nearly 
three hundred pounds in the bank. But this man had 
travelled over most of the world, and enjoyed wonderful 
opportunities on some American railroad, with two dol- 
lars a shift and double pay on Sunday and at night; 
whereas my fellow-passenger had never quitted Tyneside, 
and had made all that he possessed in that same accursed, 
down-falling England, whence skilled miechanics, engi- 
neers, millwrights, and carpenters were fleeing as from 
the native country of starvation. 

Fitly enough, we slid off on the subject of strikes and 
wages and hard times. Being from the Tyne, and a man 
who had gained and lost in his own pocket by these 
fluctuations, he had much to say, and held strong opinions 
on the subject. He spoke sharply of the masters, and, 
when I led him on, of the men also. The masters had 
been selfish and obstructive; the men selfish, silly, and 
light-headed. He rehearsed to me the course of a meet- 
ing at which he had been present, and the somewhat 



94 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

long discourse which he had there pronounced, calling 
into question the wisdom and even the good faith of the 
Union delegates; and although he had escaped himself 
through flush times and starvation times with a hand- 
somely provided purse, he had so little faith in either man 
or master, and so profound a terror for the unerring 
Nemesis of mercantile affairs, that he could think of no 
hope for our country outside of a sudden and complete 
political subversion. Down must go Lords and Church 
and Army; and capital, by some happy direction, must 
change hands from worse to better, or England stood 
condemned. Such principles, he said, were growing 
"like a seed/' 

From this mild, soft, domestic man, these words 
sounded unusually ominous and grave. I had heard 
enough revolutionary talk among my workmen fellow- 
passengers; but most of it was hot and turgid, and fell 
discredited from the lips of unsuccessful men. This man 
was calm; he had attained prosperity and ease; he dis- 
approved the policy which had been pursued by labour 
in the past; and yet this was his panacea, — to rend the 
old country from end to end, and from top to bottom, 
and in clamour and civil discord remodel it with the hand 
of violence. 

THE STOWAWAYS 

On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talk- 
ing in our companion, Steerage Nos. 2 and 3, we remarked 
a new figure. He wore tweed clothes, well enough made 
if not very fresh, and a plain smoking-cap. His face was 
pale, with pale eyes, and spiritedly enough designed; 
but though not yet thirty, a sort of blackguardly degen- 
eration had already overtaken his features. The fine 
nose had grown fleshy towards the point, the pale eyes 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 95 

were sunk in fat. His hands were strong and elegant; 
his experience of life evidently varied; his speech full of 
pith and verve; his manners forward, but perfectly pre- 
sentable. The lad who helped in the second cabin told 
me, in answer to a question, that he did not know who 
he was, but thought, ''by his way of speaking, and be- 
cause he was so polite, that he was some one from the 
saloon.^* 

I was not so sure, for to me there was something 
equivocal in his air and bearing. He might have been, 
I thought, the son of some good family who had fallen 
early into dissipation and run from home. But, making 
early allowance, how admirable was his talk! I wish 
you could have heard him tell his own stories. They 
were so swingingly set forth, in such dramatic language, 
and illustrated here and there by such luminous bits of 
acting that they could only lose in any reproduction. 
There were tales of the P. and O. Company,^ where he 
had been an oflBcer; of the East Indies, where in former 
years he had lived lavishly; of the Royal Engineers, where 
he had served for a period; and of a dozen other sides of 
life, each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait. 
He had the talk to himself that night, we were all so glad 
to listen. The best talkers usually address themselves 
to some particular society; there they are kings, else- 
where camp-followers, as a man may know Russian and 
yet be ignorant of Spanish; but this fellow had a frank, 
headlong power of style, and a broad, human choice of 
subject, that would have turned any circle in the world 
into a circle of hearers. He was a Homeric talker, plain, 
strong, and cheerful; and the things and the people of 
which he spoke became readily and clearly present to the 
minds of those who heard him. This, with a certain 

1 Peninsular and Oriental steamship line running from England to 
India. 



96 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

added colouring of rhetoric and rodomontade, must have 
been the style of Burns, who equally charmed the ears 
of duchesses and hostlers. 

Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points 
remained obscure in his narration. The Engineers, for 
instance, was a service which he praised highly; it is true 
there would be trouble with the sergeants; but then the 
officers were gentlemen, and his own, in particular, one 
among ten thousand. It sounded so far exactly like an 
episode in the rakish, topsy-turvy life of such an one as 
I had imagined. But then there came incidents more 
doubtful, which showed an almost impudent greed after 
gratuities, and a truly impudent disregard for truth. 
And then there was the tale of his departure. He had 
wearied, it seems, of Woolwich, and one fine day, with 
a companion, slipped up to London for a spree. I have 
a suspicion that spree was meant to be a long one; but 
God disposes all things; and one morning, near West- 
minster Bridge, whom should he come across but the 
very sergeant who had recruited him at first! What 
followed? He himself indicated cavalierly that he had 
then resigned. Let us put it so. But these resignations 
are sometimes very trying. 

At length, after having delighted us for hours, he took 
himself away from the companion; and I could ask 
Mackay who and what he was. ^*That?'^ said Mac- 
kay. " Why, that ^s one of the stowaways.'^ 

^'No man,'' said the same authority, "who has had 
anything to do with the sea, would ever think of paying 
for a passage.'' I give the statement as Mackay's, with- 
out endorsement; yet I am tempted to believe that it 
contains a grain of truth; and if you add that the man 
shall be impudent and thievish, or else dead-broke, it 
may even pass for a fair representation of the facts. We 
gentlemen of England who live at home at ease have, I 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 97 

suspect, very insuflBcient ideas on the subject. All the 
world over, people are stowing away in coal-holes and 
dark corners, and when ships are once out to sea, ap- 
pearing again, begrimed and bashful, upon deck. The 
career of these sea-tramps partakes largely of the adven- 
turous. They may be poisoned by coal-gas, or die by 
starvation in their place of concealment; or when found 
they may be clapped at once and ignominiously into 
irons, thus to be carried to their promised land, the port 
of destination, and alas! brought back in the same way 
to that from which they started, and there delivered over 
to the magistrates and the seclusion of a county jail. 
Since I crossed the Atlantic, one miserable stowaway was 
found in a dying state among the fuel, uttered but a word 
or two, and departed for a farther country than America. 
When the stowaway appears on deck, he has but one 
thing to pray for: that he be set to work, which is the 
price and sign of his forgiveness. After half an hour with 
a swab or a bucket, he feels himself as secure as if he had 
paid for his passage. It is not altogether a bad thing for 
the company, who get more or less eflBcient hands for 
nothing but a few plates of junk and duff; and every now 
and again find themselves better paid than by a whole 
family of cabin passengers. Not long ago, for instance, 
a packet was saved from nearly certain loss by the skill 
and courage of a stowaway engineer. As was no more 
than just, a handsome subscription rewarded him for 
his success; but even without such exceptional good for- 
tune, as things stand in England and America, the stow- 
away will often make a good profit out of his adventure. 
Four engineers stowed away last summer on the same 
ship, the Circassia; and before two days after their arrival 
each of the four had found a comfortable berth. This was 
the most hopeful tale of emigration that I heard from 
first to last; and as you see, the luck was for stowaways. 



98 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

My curiosity was much inflamed by what I heard; and 
the next morning, as I was making the round of the ship, 
I was dehghted to find the ex-Royal Engineer engaged 
in washing down the white paint of a deck house. There 
was another fellow at work beside him, a lad not more 
than twenty, in the most miraculous tatters, his hand- 
some face sown with grains of beauty and lighted up 
by expressive eyes. Four stowaways had been found 
aboard our ship before she left the Clyde, but these two 
had alone escaped the ignominy of being put ashore. 
Alick, my acquaintance of last night, was Scots by birth, 
and by trade a practical engineer; the other was from 
Devonshire, and had been to sea before the mast. Two 
people more unlike by training, character, and habits, it 
would be hard to imagine; yet here they were together, 
scrubbing paint. 

Alick had held all sorts of good situations, and wasted 
many opportunities in life. I have heard him end a 
story with these words: ^^That was in my golden days, 
when I used finger-glasses." Situation after situation 
failed him; then followed the depression of trade, and 
for months he had hung round with other idlers, playing 
marbles all day in the West Park, and going home at night 
to tell his landlady how he had been seeking for a job. 
I believe this kind of existence was not unpleasant to 
Alick himself, and he might have long continued to en- 
joy idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let 
us call him Brown, who grew restive. This fellow was 
continually threatening to slip his cable for the States, 
and at last, one Wednesday, Glasgow was left widowed 
of her Brown. Some months afterwards, Alick met an- 
other old chum in Sauchiehall Street. 

"By the by, Alick,'' said he, "I met a gentleman in 
New York who was asking for you.'' 

"Who was that?" asked Alick. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 99 

"The new second engineer on board the So-and-so,'' 
was the reply. 

"Well, and who is he? ^' 

"Brown, to be sure/^ 

For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartette 
aboard the Circassia. If that was the way of it in the 
States, Alick thought it was high time to follow Brown's 
example. He spent his last day, as he put it, "review- 
ing the yeomanry,'' and the next morning says he to his 
landlady, "Mrs. X., I '11 not take porridge to-day, please; 
I '11 take some eggs." 

"Why, have you found a job?" she asked, delighted. 

"Well, yes," returned the perfidious Alick; "I think 
I '11 start to-day." 

And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but for 
America. I am afraid that landlady has seen the last 
of him. 

It was easy enough to get on board in the confusion 
that attends a vessel's departure; and in one of the dark 
corners of Steerage No. 1, flat in a bunk and with an 
empty stomach, Alick made the voyage from the Broo- 
mielaw to Greenock. That night the ship's yeoman 
pulled him out by the heels and had him before the mate. 
Two other stowaways had already been found and sent 
ashore; but by this time darkness had fallen, they were 
out in the middle of the estuary, and the last steamer had 
left them till the morning. 

"Take him to the forecastle and give him a meal," 
said the mate, "and see and pack him off the first thing 
to-morrow." 

In the forecastle he had supper, a good night's rest, 
and breakfast; and was sitting placidly with a pipe, fan- 
cying all was over and the game up for good with that 
ship, when one of the sailors grumbled out an oath at him, 
with a "What are you doing there?" and "Do you call 



100 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

that hiding, anyway?" There was need of no more; 
Alick was in another bunk before the day was older. 
Shortly before the passengers arrived, the ship was cur- 
sorily inspected. He heard the round come down the 
companion and look into one pen after another, until 
they came within two of the one in which he lay con- 
cealed. Into these last two they did not enter, but merely 
glanced from without; and Alick had no doubt that he 
was personally favoured in this escape. It was the char- 
acter of the man to attribute nothing to luck and but 
little to kindness; whatever happened to him he had 
earned in his own right amply; favours came to him from 
his singular attraction and adroitness, and misfortunes 
he had always accepted with his eyes open. Half an 
hour after the searchers had departed, the steerage began 
to fill with legitimate passengers, and the worst of Alick's 
troubles was at an end. He was soon making himself 
popular, smoking other people's tobacco, and politely 
sharing their private stock of delicacies, and when night 
came he retired to his bunk beside the others with com- 
posure. 

Next day by afternoon. Lough Foyle being already 
far behind, and only the rough northwestern hills of 
Ireland within view, Alick appeared on deck to court 
inquiry and decide his fate. As a matter of fact, he was 
known to several on board, and even intimate with one 
of the engineers; but it was plainly not the etiquette of 
such occasions for the authorities to avow their infor- 
mation. Every one professed surprise and anger on his 
appearance, and he was led prisoner before the captain. 

" What have you got to say for yourself ?'' inquired the 
captain. 

" Not much,'^ said Alick, " but when a man has been 
a long time out of a job, he will do things he would not 
under other circumstances." 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 101 

"Are you willing to work?^' 

Alick swore he was burning to be useful. ^ 

"And what can you do?^' asked the captain. 

He replied composedly that he was a brass-fitter by 
trade. 

"I think you will be better at engineering?'^ sug- 
gested the officer, with a shrewd look. 

"No, sir,'' says Alick simply. — "There 's few can beat 
me at a lie," was his engaging commentary to me as he 
recounted the affair. 

"Have you been to sea?" again asked the captain. 

" I 've had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but no 
more," replied the unabashed Alick. 

"Well, we must try and find some work for you," 
concluded the officer. 

And hence we behold Alick, clear of the hot engine- 
room, lazily scraping paint and now and then taking a 
pull upon a sheet. "You leave me alone," was his de- 
duction. " When I get talking to a man, I can get round 
him." 

The other stowaway, whom I will call the Devonian 
— it was noticeable that neither of them told his name — 
had both been brought up and seen the world in a much 
smaller way. His father, a confectioner, died and was 
closely followed by his mother. His sisters had taken, 
I think, to dress-making. He himself had returned from 
sea about a year ago and gone to live with his brother, 
who kept the "George Hotel" — "it was not quite a real 
hotel," added the candid fellow — "and had a hired man 
to mind the horses," At first the Devonian was very 
welcome; but as time went on his brother not unnatu- 
rally grew cool towards him, and he began to find himself 
one too many at the "George Hotel." "I don't think 
brothers care much for you," he said, as a general reflec- 
tion upon life. Hurt at this change, nearly penniless, 



102 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and too proud to ask for more, he set oS on foot and 
walked eighty miles to Weymouth, living on the journey 
as he could. He would have enlisted, but he was too 
small for the army and too old for the navy; and thought 
himself fortunate at last to find a berth on board a trad- 
ing dandy .^ Somewhere in the Bristol Channel, the 
dandy sprung a leak and went down; and though the 
crew were picked up and brought ashore by fishermen, 
they found themselves with nothing but the clothes upon 
their back. His next engagement was scarcely better 
starred; for the ship proved so leaky, and frightened them 
all so heartily during a short passage through the Irish 
Sea, that the entire crew deserted and remained behind 
upon the quays of Belfast. 

Evil days were now coming thick on the Devonian. 
He could find no berth in Belfast, and had to work a pas- 
sage to Glasgow on a steamer. She reached the Broo- 
mielaw on a Wednesday: the Devonian had a bellyful 
that morning, laying in breakfast manfully to provide 
against the future, and set off along the quays to seek 
employment. But he was now not only penniless, his 
clothes had begun to fall in tatters; he had begun to have 
the look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing 
to say to a ragamuffin; for in that trade, as in all others, 
it is the coat that depicts the man. You may hand, 
reef, and steer like an angel, but if you have a hole in 
your trousers, it is like a millstone round your neck. 
The Devonian lost heart at so many refusals. He had 
not the impudence to beg; although, as he said, "when I 
had money of my own, I always gave it.'' It was only 
on Saturday morning, after three whole days of starvation, 
that he asked a scone^ from a milk-woman, who added 
of her own accord a glass of milk. He had now made 

^ A vessel rigged as a sloop. 

2 A thin cake of wheat or barley-meal. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 103 

up his mind to ^tow away, not from any desire to see 
America, but merely to obtain the comfort of a place in 
the forecastle and a supply of familiar sea-fare. He 
lived by begging, always from milk-women, and always 
scones and milk and was not once refused. It was vile 
wet weather, and he could never have been dry. By 
night he walked the streets, and by day slept upon Glas- 
gow Green, and heard, in the intervals of his dozing, the 
famous theologians of the spot clear up intricate points 
of doctrine and appraise the merits of the clergy. He 
had not much instruction; he could ^^read bills on the 
street," but was "main bad at writing"; yet these theolo- 
gians seem to have impressed him with a genuine sense 
of amusement. Why he did not go to the Sailor's Home 
I kiiow not; I presume there is in Glasgow one of these 
institutions, which are by far the happiest and the wisest 
effort of contemporaneous charity; but I must stand to 
my author, as they say in old books, and relate the story 
as I heard it. In the meantime, he had tried four times 
to stow away in different vessels, and four times had been 
discovered and handed back to starvation. The fifth 
time was lucky; and you may judge if he were pleased 
to be aboard ship again, at his old work, and with duff 
twice a week. He was, said Alick, " a devil for the duff." 
Or if devil was not the word, it was one if anything 
stronger. 

The difference in the conduct of the two was remark- 
able. The Devonian was as willing as any paid hand, 
swarmed aloft among the first, pulled his natural weight 
and firmly upon a rope, and found work for himself 
when there was none to show him. Alick, on the other 
hand, was not only a skulker in the grain, but took a 
humourous and fine gentlemanly view of the transaction. 
He would speak to me by the hour in ostentatious idle- 
ness; and only if the bo's'un or a mate came by, fell-to 



104 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

languidly for just the necessary time till they were out 
of sight. '' I 'm not breaking my heart with it," he re- 
marked. 

Once there was a hatch to be opened near where he 
was stationed; he watched the preparations for a second 
or so suspiciously, and then, "Hullo,'^ said he, "here's 
some real work coming — I 'm off,'' and he was gone that 
moment. Again, calculating the six guinea passage- 
money, and the probable duration of the passage, he re- 
marked pleasantly that he was getting six shillings a day 
for this job, " and it 's pretty dear to the company at 
that." "They are making nothing by me," was another 
of his observations; "they're making something by that 
fellow." And he pointed to the Devonian, who was just 
then busy to the eyes. 

The more you saw of Alick, the more, it must be 
owned, you learned to despise him. His natural talents 
were of no use either to himself or others; for his char- 
acter had degenerated like his face, and become pulpy 
and pretentious. Even his power of persuasion, which 
was certainly very surprising, stood in some danger of 
being lost or neutralised by over-confidence. He lied in 
an aggressive, brazen manner, like a pert criminal in the 
dock; and he was so vain of his own cleverness that he 
could not refrain from boasting, ten minutes after, of the 
very trick by which he had deceived you. "Why, now 
I have more money than when I came on board," he said 
one night, exhibiting a sixpence, "and yet I stood my- 
self a bottle of beer before I went to bed yesterday/ And 
as for tobacco, I have fifteen sticks of it." That was 
fairly successful indeed; yet a man of his superiority, and 
with a less obtrusive policy, might, who knows ? have got 
the length of half a crown. A man who prides himself 
upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of 
silence, above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 105 

the farce and for dramatic purposes that Scapin^ en- 
larges on his peculiar talents to the world at large. 

Scapin is perhaps a good name for this clever, unfor- 
tunate Alick; for at the bottom of all his misconduct there 
was a guiding sense of humour that moved you to forgive 
him. It was more than half a jest that he conducted his 
existence. " Oh, man,^' he said to me once with unusual 
emotion, like a man thinking of his mistress, "I would 
give up anything for a lark." 

It was in relation to his fellow-stowaway that Alick 
showed the best, or perhaps I should say the only good, 
points of his nature. "Mind you," he said suddenly, 
changing his tone, " mind you that ^s a good boy. He 
wouldn't tell you a lie. A lot of them think he is a 
scamp because his clothes are ragged, but he isnH; he ^s 
as good as gold." To hear him, you become aware that 
Alick himself had a taste for virtue. He thought his own 
idleness and the other's industry equally becoming. He 
was no more anxious to insure his own reputation as a 
liar than to uphold the truthfulness of his companion; 
and he seemed unaware of what w^as incongruous in his 
attitude, and was plainly sincere in both characters. 

It was not surprising that he should take an interest in 
the Devonian, for the lad worshipped and served him in 
love and wonder. Busy as he was, he would find time 
to warn Alick of an approaching oflBcer, or even to tell 
him that the coast was clear, and he might slip off and 
smoke a pipe in safety. ''Tom," he once said to him, 
for that was the name which Alick ordered him to use, 
''if you don't like going to the galley, I '11 go for you. 
You ain't used to this kind of thing, you ain't. But I 'm 
a sailor; and I can understand the feelings of any fellow, 
I can." Again, he was hard up, and casting about for 

^ A shrewd, unprincipled servant in Moliere's comedy, Les Four- 
heries de Scapin, 



106 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

some tobacco, for he was not so liberally used in this 
respect as others perhaps less worthy, when Alick offered 
him the half of one of his fifteen sticks. I think, for my 
part, he might have increased the offer to a whole one, 
or perhaps a pair of them, and not lived to regret his 
liberality. But the Devonian refused. "No,^^ he said, 
"you ^re a stowaway like me; I won't take it from you, 
I '11 take it from some one who 's not down on his luck.'' 

It was notable in this generous lad that he was strongly 
under the influence of sex. If a woman passed near 
where he was working, his eyes lit up, his hand paused, 
and his mind wandered instantly to other thoughts. It 
was natural that he should exercise a fascination pro- 
portionally strong upon women. He begged, you will 
remember, from women only, and was never refused. 
Without wishing to explain away the charity of those 
who helped him, I cannot but fancy he may have owed a 
little to his handsome face, and to that quick, responsive 
nature, formed for love, which speaks eloquently through 
all disguises, and can stamp an impression in ten min- 
utes' talk or an exchange of glances. He was the more 
dangerous in that he was far from bold, but seemed to 
woo in spite of himself, and with a soft and pleading eye. 
Ragged as he was, and many a scarecrow is in that respect 
more comfortably furnished, even on board he. was not 
without some curious admirers. 

There was a girl among the passengers, a tall, blonde, 
handsome, strapping Irishwoman, with a wild, accom- 
modating eye, whom Alick had dubbed Tommy, with 
that transcendental appropriateness that defies analysis. 
One day the Devonian was lying for warmth in the upper 
stoke-hole, which stands open on the deck, when Irish 
Tommy came past, very neatly attired, as was her custom. 

"Poor fellow," she said, stopping, "you haven't a 
vest." 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 107 

"No/^ he said; "I wish I ^ad/^ 

Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, until, in 
his embarrassment, for he knew not how to look under 
this scrutiny, he pulled out his pipe and began to fill it 
with tobacco. 

"Do you want a match ?^^ she asked. And before he 
had time to reply, she ran oflF and presently returned with 
more than one. 

That was the beginning and the end, as far as our pas- 
sage is concerned, of what I will make bold to call this 
love-affair. There are many relations which go on to 
marriage and last during a lifetime, in which less human 
feeling is engaged than in this scene of five minutes at the 
stoke-hole. 

Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the 
stowaways; but in a larger sense of the word I have yet 
more to add. Jones had discovered and pointed out to 
me a young woman who was remarkable among her fel- 
lows for a pleasing and interesting air. She was poorly 
clad, to the verge, if not over the line, of disrespectability, 
with a ragged old jacket and a bit of a sealskin cap no 
bigger than your fist; but her eyes, her whole expression, 
and her manner, even in ordinary moments, told of a true 
womanly nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. 
She had a look, too, of refinement, like one who might 
have been a better lady than most, had she been allowed 
the opportunity. When alone she seemed preoccupied 
and sad; but she was not often alone; there was usually 
by her side a heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, 
chary of speech and gesture — not from caution, but pov- 
erty of disposition; a man like a ditcher, unlovely and 
uninteresting; whom she petted and tended and waited 
on with her eyes as if he had been Amadis of Gaul.^ It 
was strange to see this hulking fellow dog-sick, and this 
* A legendary hero, appearing in numerous mediaeval romances. 



108 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

delicate, sad woman caring for him. He seemed, from 
first to last, insensible of her caresses and attentions, and 
she seemed unconscious of his insensibility. The Irish 
husband, who sang his wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl 
serving her Orson,^ were the two bits of human nature 
that most appealed to me throughout the voyage. 

On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were 
collected; and soon a rumour began to go round the ves- 
sel; and this girl, with her bit of sealskin cap, became the 
centre of whispering and pointed fingers. She also, it 
was said, was a stowaway of a sort; for she was on board 
with neither ticket nor money; and the man with whom 
she travelled was the father of a family, who had left wife 
and children to be hers. The ship's oflficers discouraged 
the story, which may therefore have been a story and no 
more; but it was believed in the steerage, and the poor 
girl had to encounter many curious eyes from that day 
forth. 

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW 

Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across 
the ocean combined both. ^' Out of my country and my- 
self I go,'^ sings the old poet: and I was not only travelling 
out of my country in latitude and longitude, but out of 
myself in diet, associates, and consideration. Part of 
the interest and a great deal of the amusement flowed, at 
least to me, from this novel situation in the world. 

I found that I had what they call fallen in life with 
absolute success and verisimilitude. I was taken for 
a steerage passenger; no one seemed surprised that I 
should be so; and there was nothing but the brass plate 

^ Another hero of mediaeval romance. According to the story, he 
was carried off by a bear, and grew up rough and uncouth; hence 
Stevenson's point. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 109 

between decks to remind me that I had once been a 
gentleman. In a former book, describing a former jour- 
ney, I expressed some wonder that I could be readily 
and naturally taken for a pedlar, and explained the acci- 
dent by the difference of language and manners between 
England and France. I must now take a humbler view; 
for here I was among my own countrymen, somewhat 
roughly clad, to be sure, but with every advantage of 
speech and manner; and I am bound to confess that I 
passed for nearly anything you please except an educated 
gentleman. The sailors called me "mate," the officers 
addressed me as "my man," my comrades accepted me 
without hesitation for a person of their own character 
and experience, but with some curious information. 
One, a mason himself, believed I was a mason; several, 
and among these at least one of the seamen, judged me 
to be a petty oflBcer in the American navy; and I was so 
often set down for a practical engineer that at last I had 
not the heart to deny it. From all these guesses I drew 
one conclusion, which told against the insight of my com- 
panions. They might be close observers in their own 
way, and read the manners in the face; but it was plain 
that they did not extend their observation to the hands. 

To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part with- 
out a hitch. It is true I came little in their way; but when 
we did encounter, there was no recognition in their eye, 
although I confess I sometimes courted it in silence. All 
these, my inferiors and equals, took me, like the trans- 
formed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human 
man. They gave me a hard, dead look, with the flesh 
about the eye kept unrelaxed. 

With the women this surprised me less, as I had al- 
ready experimented on the sex by going abroad through 
a suburban part of London simply attired in a sleeve- 
waistcoat. The result was curious. I then learned for 



no SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the jBrst time, and by the exhaustive process, how much 
attention ladies are accustomed to bestow on all male 
creatures of their own station; for, in my humble rig, 
each one who went by me caused me a certain shock of 
surprise and a sense of something wanting. In my nor- 
mal circumstances, it appeared every young lady must 
have paid me some tribute of a glance; and though I had 
often not detected it when it was given, I w^as well aware 
of its absence when it was withheld. My height seemed 
to decrease with every woman who passed me, for she 
passed me like a dog. This is one of my grounds for 
supposing that what are called the upper classes may 
sometimes produce a disagreeable impression in what 
are called the lower; and I wish some one would continue 
my experiment, and find out exactly at what stage of 
toilette a man becomes invisible to the well-regulated 
female eye. 

Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more com- 
plete test; for, even with the addition of speech and man- 
ner, I passed among the ladies for precisely the average 
man of the steerage. It was one afternoon that I saw 
this demonstrated. A very plainly dressed w^oman w^as 
taken ill on deck. I think I had the luck to be present 
at every sudden seizure during all the passage; and on 
this occasion found myself in the place of importance, 
supporting the sufferer. There was not only a large 
crowd immediately around us, but a considerable knot 
of saloon passengers leaning over our heads from the 
hurricane-deck. One of these, an elderly managing 
woman, hailed me with counsels. Of course I had to 
reply; and as the talk went on, I began to discover that 
the whole group took me for the husband. I looked 
upon my new wife, poor creature, w^ith mingled feelings; 
and I must own she had not even the appearance of the 
poorest class of city servant-maids, but looked more like 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 111 

a country wench who should have been employed at a 
roadside inn. Now was the time for me to go and study 
the brass plate. 

To such of the oflBcers as knew about me — the doctor, 
the purser, and the stewards — I appeared in the light of 
a broad joke. The fact that I spent the better part of 
my day in writing had gone abroad over the ship and 
tickled them all prodigiously. \\Tienever they met me 
they referred to my absurd occupation with familiarity 
and breadth of humorous intention. Their manner was 
well calculated to remind me of my fallen fortunes. You 
may be sincerely amused by the amateur literary efforts 
of a gentleman, but you scarce publish the feeling to his 
face. ''Welir' they would say: "still writing?'' And 
the smile would widen into a laugh. The purser came 
one day into the cabin, and, touched to the heart by my 
misguided industry, offered me some other kind of writ- 
ing, " for w^hich," he added pointedly, "you will be paid/' 
This was nothing else than to copy out the list of pas- 
sengers. 

Another trick of mine which told against my reputa- 
tion was my choice of roosting-place in an active draught 
upon the cabin floor. I was openly jeered and flouted 
for this eccentricity; and a considerable knot would some- 
times gather at the door to see my last dispositions for 
the night. This was embarrassing, but I learned to sup- 
port the trial with equanimity. 

Indeed I may say that, upon the whole, my new posi- 
tion sat lightly and naturally upon my spirits. I ac- 
cepted the consequences with readiness, and found them 
far from difficult to bear. The steerage conquered me; 
I conformed more and more to the type of the place, not 
only in manner but at heart, growing hostile to the oflBcers 
and cabin passengers who looked down upon me, and 
day by day greedier for small delicacies. Such was the 



112 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

result, as I fancy, of a diet of bread and butter, soup and 
porridge. We think we have no sweet tooth as long as 
we are full to the brim of molasses; but a man must have 
sojourned in the workhouse before he boasts himself in- 
different to dainties. Every evening, for instance, I was 
more and more preoccupied about our doubtful fare at 
tea. If it was delicate my heart was much lightened; if 
it was but broken fish I was proportionally downcast. 
The offer of a little jelly from a fellow-passenger more 
provident than myself caused a marked elevation in my 
spirits. And I would have gone to the ship's end and 
back again for an oyster or a chipped fruit. 

In other ways I was content with my position. It 
seemed no disgrace to be confounded with my company; 
for I may as well declare at once I found their manners 
as gentle and becoming as those of any other class. I 
do not mean that my friends could have sat down with- 
out embarrassment and laughable disaster at the table 
of a duke. That does not imply an inferiority of breed- 
ing, but a difference of usage. Thus I flatter myself 
that I conducted myself well among my fellow-passengers; 
yet my most ambitious hope is not to have avoided faults, 
but to have committed as few as possible. I know too 
well that my tact is not the same as their tact, and that 
my habit of a different society constituted, not only no 
qualification, but a positive disability to move easily and 
becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me — 
because I "managed to behave very pleasantly '^ to my 
fellow-passengers, was how he put it — I could follow the 
thought in his mind, and knew his compliment to be such 
as we pay foreigners on their proficiency in English. I 
dare say this praise was given me immediately on the 
back of some unpardonable solecism, which had led him 
to review my conduct as a whole. We are all ready to 
laugh at the ploughman among lords; we should con- 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 113 

sider also the case of a lord among the ploughmen. I 
have seen a lawyer in the house of a Hebridean fisherman; 
and I know, but nothing will induce me to disclose, which 
of these two was the better gentleman. Some of our 
finest behaviour, though it looks well enough from the 
boxes, may seem even brutal to the gallery. We boast 
too often manners that are parochial rather than univer- 
sal; that, like a country wine, will not bear transportation 
for a hundred miles, nor from the parlour to the kitchen. 
To be a gentleman is to be one all the world over, and 
in every relation and grade of society. It is a high call- 
ing, to which a man must first be born, and then devote 
himself for life. And, unhappily, the manners of a cer- 
tain so-called upper grade have a kind of currency, and 
meet with a certain external acceptation throughout all 
the others, and this tends to keep us well satisfied with 
slight acquirements and the amateurish accomplishments 
of a clique. But manners, like art, should be human and 
central. 

Some of niy fellow-passengers, as I now moved among 
them in a relation of equality, seemed to me excellent 
gentlemen. They were not rough, nor hasty, nor dis- 
putatious; debated pleasantly, differed kindly; were 
helpful, gentle, patient, and placid. The type of man- 
ners was plain, and even heavy; there was little to please 
the eye, but nothing to shock; and I thought gentleness 
lay more nearly at the spring of behaviour than in many 
more ornate and delicate societies. I say delicate, where 
I cannot say refined; a thing may be fine, like ironwork, 
without being delicate, like lace. There was here less del- 
icacy; the skin supported more callously the natural sur- 
face of events, the mind received more bravely the crude 
facts of human existence; but I do not think that there 
was less effective refinement, less consideration for others, 
less polite suppression of self. I speak of the best among 



114 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

my fellow-passengers; for in the steerage, as well as in the 
saloon, there is a mixture. Those, then, with whom I 
found myself in sympathy, and of whom I may therefore 
hope to write with a greater measure of truth, were not 
only as good in their manners, but endowed with very 
much the same natural capacities, and about as wise in 
deduction, as the bankers and barristers of what is called 
society. One and all were too much interested in dis- 
connected facts, and loved information for its owti sake 
with too rash a devotion ; but people in all classes display 
the same appetite as they gorge themselves daily with 
the miscellaneous gossip of the newspaper. Newspaper 
reading, as far as I can make out, is often rather a sort 
of brown study than an act of culture. I have myself 
palmed off yesterday's issue on a friend, and seen him re- 
peruse it for a continuance of minutes with an air at once 
refreshed and solemn. Workmen, perhaps, pay more 
attention; but though they may be eager listeners, they 
have rarely seemed to me either willing or careful think- 
ers. Culture is not measured by the greatness of the field 
which is covered by our knowledge, but by the nicety wuth 
which we can perceive relations in that field, whether 
great or small. Workmen, certainly those who were 
on board with me, I found wanting in this quality or 
habit of the mind. They did not perceive relations, but 
leaped to a so-called cause, and thought the problem 
settled. Thus the cause of everything in England was 
the form of government, and the cure for all evils was, 
by consequence, a revolution. It is surprising how many 
of them said this, and that none should have had a defi- 
nite thought in his head as he said it. Some hated the 
Church because they disagreed with it; some hated Lord 
Beaconsfield because of war and taxes; all hated the mas- 
ters, possibly with reason. But these feelings were not 
at the root of the matter; the true reasoning of their souls 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 115 

ran thus — I have not got on; I ought to have got on; if 
there was a revolution I should get on. How? They 
had no idea. Why? Because — because — well, look at 
America! 

To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, 
if you come to that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there 
is but one question in modern home politics, though it 
appears in many shapes, and that is the question of 
money; and but one political remedy, that the people 
should grow wiser and better. My workmen fellow- 
passengers were as impatient and dull of hearing on the 
second of these points as any member of Parliament; but 
they had some glimmerings of the first. They would not 
hear of improvement on their part, but wished the world 
made over again in a crack, so that they might remain 
improvident and idle and debauched, and yet enjoy the 
comfort and respect that should accompany the opposite 
virtues; and it was in this expectation, as far as I could see, 
that many of them were now on their way to America. 
But on the point of money they saw clearly enough that 
inland politics, so far as they were concerned, were re- 
ducible to the question of annual income; a question 
which should long ago have been settled by a revolution, 
they did not know how, and which they were now about 
to settle for themselves, once more they knew not how, 
by crossing the Atlantic in a steamship of considerable 
tonnage. 

And yet it has been amply shown them that the sec- 
ond or income question is in itself nothing, and may as 
well be left undecided, if there be no wisdom and virtue 
to profit by the change. It is not by a man's purse, but 
by his character, that he is rich or poor. Barney will be 
poor, Alick will be poor, Mackay will be poor; let them 
go where they will, and wreck all the governments under 
heaven, they will be poor until they die. 



116 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Nothing is perhaps more notable in the average work- 
man than his surprising idleness, and the candour with 
which he confesses to the failing. It has to me been al- 
ways something of a relief to find the poor, as a general 
rule, so little oppressed with work. I can in consequence 
enjoy my own more fortunate beginning with a better 
grace. The other day I was living with a farmer in 
America, an old frontiersman, who had worked and 
fought, hunted and farmed, from his childhood up. He 
excused himself for his defective education on the ground 
that he had been overworked from first to last. Even 
now, he said, anxious as he was, he had never the time 
to take up a book. In consequence of this, I observed 
him closely; he was occupied for four or, at the extreme 
outside, for five hours out of the twenty-four, and then 
principally in walking; and the remainder of the day he 
passed in born idleness, either eating fruit or standing 
with his back against a door. I have known men do hard 
literary work all morning, and then undergo quite as 
much physical fatigue by way of relief as satisfied this 
powerful frontiersman for the day. He, at least, like all 
the educated class, did so much homage to industry as to 
persuade himself he was industrious. But the average 
mechanic recognises his idleness with effrontery; he has 
even, as I am told, organized it. 

I give the story as it was told me, and it was told me 
for a fact. A man fell from a housetop in the city of 
Aberdeen, and was brought into hospital with broken 
bones. He was asked what was his trade, and replied 
that he was a tapper. No one had ever heard of such a 
thing before; the officials were filled with curiosity; they 
besought an explanation. It appeared that when a 
party of slaters were engaged upon a roof, they would 
now and then be taken with a fancy for the public-house. 
Now a seamstress, for example, might slip away from 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 117 

her work and no one be the wiser; but if these fellows 
adjourned, the tapping of the mallets would cease, and 
thus the neighbourhood be advertised of their defection. 
Hence the career of the tapper. He has to do the tapping 
and keep up an industrious bustle on the housetop dur- 
ing the absence of the slaters. When he taps for only 
one or two the thing is child's-play, but when he has to 
represent a whole troop, it is then that he earns his money 
in the sw^eat of his brow. Then must he bound from 
spot to spot, reduplicate, triplicate, sexduplicate his sin- 
gle personality, and swell and hasten his blows, until he 
produce a perfect illusion for the ear, and you would 
swear that a crowd of emulous masons were continuing 
merrily to roof the house. It must be a strange sight 
from an upper window. 

I heard nothing on board of the tapper; but I was as- 
tonished at the stories told by my companions. Skulking, 
shirking, malingering, were all established tactics, it 
appeared. They could see no dishonesty where a man 
who is paid for an hour^s work gives half an hour's con- 
sistent idling in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse 
to watch for the police during a burglary, and call himself 
an honest man. It is not sufficiently recognised that our 
race detests to work. If I thought that I should have to 
work every day of my life as hard as I am working now, I 
should be tempted to give up the struggle. And the 
workman early begins on his career of toil. He has never 
had his fill of holidays in the past, and his prospect of 
holidays in the future is both distant and uncertain. In 
the circumstances, it would require a high degree of virtue 
not to snatch alleviations for the moment. 

There were many good talkers on the ship; and I be- 
lieve good talking of a certain sort is a common ac- 
complishment among working-men. Where books are 
comparatively scarce, a greater amount of information 



118 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

will be given and received by word of mouth; and this 
tends to produce good talkers, and, what is no less need- 
ful for conversation, good listeners. They could all tell 
a story with effect. I am sometimes tempted to think 
that the less literary class show always better in narra- 
tion; they have so much more patience with detail, are 
so much less hurried to reach the points, and preserve 
so much juster a proportion among the facts. At the 
same time their talk is dry; they pursue a topic plod- 
dingly, have not an agile fancy, do not throw sudden 
lights from unexpected quarters, and when the talk is 
over they often leave the matter where it w^as. They 
mark time instead of marching. They think only to 
argue, not to reach new conclusions, and use their rea- 
son rather as a weapon of offence than as a tool for self- 
improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest 
was unprofitable in result, because there was no give and 
take; they would grant you as little as possible for premise, 
and begin to dispute under an oath to conquer or to die. 

But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interest- 
ing than that of a wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, 
hopes, and fears of which the workman's life is built lie 
nearer to necessity and nature. They are more immedi- 
ate to human life. An income calculated by the week 
is a far more human thing than one calculated by the 
year, and a small income, simply from its smallness, than 
a large one. I never wearied listening to the details of a 
workman's economy, because every item stood for some 
real pleasure. If he could afford pudding twice a week, 
you know that twice a week the man ate with genuine 
gusto and was physically happy; while if you learn that 
a rich man has seven courses a day, ten to one the half 
of them remain untasted, and the whole is but misspent 
money and a weariness to the flesh. 

The difference between England and America to a 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 119 

working-man was thus most humanly put to me by a fel- 
low-passenger: "In America," said he, "you get pies and 
puddings." I do not hear enough, in economy books, 
of pies and pudding. A man lives in and for the deli- 
cacies, adornments, and accidental attributes of life, such 
as pudding to eat and pleasant books and theatres to 
occupy his leisure. The bare terms of existence would 
be rejected with contempt by all. If a man feeds on 
bread and butter, soup and porridge, his appetite grows 
wolfish after dainties. And the workman dwells in a 
borderland, and is always within sight of those cheerless 
regions where life is more diflScult to sustain than worth 
sustaining. Every detail of our existence, where it is 
worth while to cross the ocean after pie and pudding, is 
made alive and enthralling by the presence of genuine 
desire; but it is all one to me whether Croesus has a hun- 
dred or a thousand thousands in the bank. There is 
more adventure in the life of the working-man who de- 
scends as a common soldier into the battle of life, than 
in that of the millionaire who sits apart in an oflBce, like 
Von Moltke,^ and only directs the manoeuvres by tele- 
graph. Give me to hear about the career of him who is 
in the thick of the business; to whom one change of mar- 
ket means an empty belly, and another a copious and 
savoury meal. This is not the philosophical, but the 
human side of economics; it interests like a story; and the 
life of all who are thus situated partakes in a small way 
of the charm of Robinson Crusoe; for every step is critical, 
and human life is presented to you naked and verging 
to its lowest terms. 

^ Germany's foremost strategist in the Franco-Prussian war 
(1870-1871). 



120 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 



NEW YORK 

As we drew near to New York I was at first amused, 
and then somewhat staggered, by the cautious and the 
grisly tales that went the round. You would have 
thought we were to land upon a cannibal island. You 
must speak to no one in the streets, as they would not 
leave you till you were rooked and beaten. You must 
enter a hotel with military precautions; for the least you 
had to apprehend was to awake next morning without 
money or baggage, or necessary raiment, a lone forked 
radish in a bed; and if the worst befell, you would in- 
stantly and mysteriously disappear from the ranks of 
mankind. 

I have usually found such stories correspond to the 
least modicum of fact. Thus I was warned, I remem- 
ber, against the roadside inns of the Cevennes,^ and that 
by a learned professor; and when I reached Pradelles 
the warning was explained — it was but the far-away 
rumour and reduplication of a single terrifying story 
already half a century old, and half forgotten in the the- 
atre of the events. So I was tempted to make light of 
these reports against America. But we had on board 
with us a man whose evidence it would not do to put 
aside. He had come near these perils in the body; he 
had visited a robber inn. The public has an old and 
well-grounded favour for this class of incident, and shall 
be gratified to the best of my power. 

My fellow-passenger, whom we shall call M^Naughten, 
had come from New York to Boston with a comrade, 
seeking work. They were a pair of rattling blades ; and, 
leaving their baggage at the station, passed the day in 

^ A mountain range in Southern France through which Stevenson 
had already taken the trip described in Travels with a Donkey, 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 121 

beer-saloons, and with congenial spirits, until midnight 
struck. Then they applied themselves to find a lodg- 
ing, and walked the streets till two, knocking at houses of 
entertainment and being refused admittance, or them- 
selves declining the terms. By two the inspiration of 
their liquor had begun to wear off; they were weary and 
humble, and after a great circuit found themselves in the 
same street where they had begun their search, and in 
front of a French hotel where they had already sought 
accommodation. Seeing the house still open, they re- 
turned to the charge. A man in a white cap sat in an 
office by the door. He seemed to welcome them more 
warmly than when they had first presented themselves, 
and the charge for the night had somewhat unaccount- 
ably fallen from a dollar to a quarter. They thought him 
ill-looking, but paid their quarter apiece, and were shown 
upstairs to the top of the house. There, in a small room, 
the man in the white cap wished them pleasant slum- 
bers. 

It was furnished with a bed, a chair, and some con- 
veniences. The door did not lock on the inside; and the 
only sign of adornment was a couple of framed pictures, 
one close above the head of the bed, and the other op- 
posite the foot, and both curtained, as we may sometimes 
see valuable water-colours, or the portraits of the dead, or 
works of art more than usually skittish in the subject. 
It was perhaps in the hope of finding something of this 
last description that M'Naughten's comrade pulled aside 
the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. 
There was no picture. The frame surrounded, and the 
curtain was designed to hide, an oblong aperture in the 
partition, through which they looked forth into the dark 
corridor. A person standing without could easily take 
a purse from under the pillow, or even strangle a sleeper 
as he lay abed. M'Naughten and bis comrade stared 



122 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

at each other like Vasco's seamen, "with a wild surmise;"^ 
and then the latter, catching up the lamp, ran to the other 
frame and roughly raised the curtain. There he stood, 
petrified; and M'Naughten, who had followed, grasped 
him by the wrist in terror. They could see into another 
room, larger in size than that which they occupied, where 
three men sat crouching and silent in the dark. For a 
second or so these five persons looked each other in the 
eyes, then the curtain was dropped, and M^Naughten 
and his friend made but one bolt of it out of the room 
and downstairs. The man in the white cap said nothing 
as they passed him; and they were so pleased to be once 
more in the open night that they gave up all notion of a 
bed, and walked the streets of Boston till the morning. 

No one seemed much cast down by these stories, but 
all inquired after the address of a respectable hotel ; and 
I, for my part, put myself under the conduct of Mr. 
Jones. Before noon of the second Sunday we sighted 
the low shores outside of New York harbour; the steer- 
age passengers must remain on board to pass through 
Castle Garden^ on the following morning; but we of the 
second cabin made our escape along with the lords of 
the saloon; and by six o'clock Jones and I issued into 
West Street, sitting on some straw in the bottom of an 
open baggage- wagon. It rained miraculously; and from 
that moment till on the following night I left New York, 
there was scarce a lull, and no cessation of the down- 
pour. The roadways were flooded; a loud strident noise 
of falling water filled the air; the restaurants smelt heavily 
of wet people and wet clothing. 

It took us but a few minutes, though it cost us a good 
deal of money, to be rattled along West Street to our 

' An erroneous reference to Keats' Sonnet on First Looking into 
Chapman's Homer ^ which describes Cortes' (not Vasco's) first view 
of the Pacific. 

2 Formerly the regular landing place for immigrants. 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 123 

destination: '^Reunion House, No 10 West Street, one 
minute's walk from Castle Garden; convenient to Castle 
Garden, the Steamboat Landings, California Steamers 
and Liverpool Ships; Board and Lodging per day 1 
dollar, single meals 25 cents, lodging per night 25 cents; 
private rooms for families; no charge for storage or bag- 
gage; satisfaction guaranteed to all persons; Michael 
Mitchell, Proprietor/' Reunion House was, I may go 
the length of saying, a humble hostelry. You entered 
through a long bar-room, thence passed into a little 
dining-room, and thence into a still smaller kitchen. The 
furniture was of the plainest; but the bar was hung in 
the American taste, with encouraging and hospitable 
mottoes. 

Jones was well known; we were received warmly; and 
two minutes afterwards I had refused a drink from 
the proprietor, and was going on, in my plain European 
fashion, to refuse a cigar, when Mr. Mitchell sternly 
interposed, and explained the situatix)n. He was offer- 
ing to treat me, it appeared; whenever an American bar- 
keeper proposes anything, it must be borne in mind 
that he is offering to treat; and if I did not want a drink, 
I must at least take the cigar. I took it bashfully, feel- 
ing I had begun my American career on the wrong foot. 
I did not enjoy that cigar; but this may have been from 
a variety of reasons, even the best cigar often failing to 
please if you smoke three-quarters of it in a drenching 
rain. 

For many years America was to me a sort of promised 
land; "westward the march of empire holds its way''; 
the race is for the moment to the young; what has been 
and what is we imperfectly and obscurely know; what is 
to be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations. 
Greece, Rome and Judsea are gone by forever, leaving to 
generations the legacy of their accomplished work; China 



124 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

still endures, an old-inhabited house in the brand-new 
city of nations; England has already declined, since she 
has lost the States; and to these States, therefore, yet un- 
developed, full of dark possibilities, and grown, like an- 
other Eve, from one rib out of the side of their own old 
land, the minds of young men in England turn naturally 
at a certain hopeful period of their age. It will be hard 
for an American to understand the spirit. But let him 
imagine a young man, who shall have grown up in an old 
and rigid circle, following bygone fashions and taught 
to distrust his own fresh instincts, and who now suddenly 
hears of a family of cousins, all about his own age, who 
keep house together by themselves and live far from 
restraint and tradition; let him imagine this, and he will 
have some imperfect notion of the sentiment with which 
spirited English youths turn to the thought of the Amer- 
ican Republic. It seems to them as if, out west, the war 
of life was still conducted in the open air, and on free 
barbaric terms; as if it had not yet been narrowed into 
parlours, nor begun to be conducted, like some unjust 
and dreary arbitration, by compromise, costume, forms 
of procedure, and sad, senseless self-denial. Which of 
these two he prefers, a man with any youth still left in 
him will decide rightly for himself. He would rather 
be houseless than denied a pass-key; rather go without 
food than partake of a stalled ox in stiff, respectable 
society; rather be shot out of hand than direct his life 
according to the dictates of the world. 

He knows or thinks nothing of the Maine Laws, the 
Puritan sourness, the fierce, sordid appetite for dollars, 
or the dreary existence of country towns. A few wild 
story-books which delighted his childhood form the im- 
aginative basis of his picture of America. In course of 
time, there is added to this a great crowd of stimulating 
details — vast cities that grow up as by enchantment; 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 125 

the birds, that have gone south in autumn, returning 
with the spring to find thousands camped upon their 
marshes, and the lamps burning far and near along pop- 
ulous streets; forests that disappear like snow; countries 
larger than Britain that are cleared and settled, one man 
running forth with his household gods before another, 
while the bear and the Indian are yet scarce aware of 
their approach; oil that gushes from the earth; gold that 
is washed or quarried in the brooks or glens of the Sierras; 
and all that bustle, courage, action, and constant kalei- 
doscopic change that Walt Whitman has seized and set 
forth in his vigorous, cheerful, and loquacious verses. 

Here I was at last in America, and was soon out upon 
New York streets, spying for things foreign. The place 
had to me an air of Liverpool; but such was the rain that 
not Paradise itself would have looked inviting. We were 
a party of four, under two umbrellas; Jones and I and two 
Scots lads, recent immigrants, and not indisposed to wel- 
come a compatriot. They had been six weeks in New 
York, and neither of them had yet found a single job or 
earned a single halfpenny. Up to the present they were 
exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare. 

The lads soon left us. Now I had sworn by all my 
gods to have such a dinner as would rouse the dead; 
there was scarce any expense at which I should have 
hesitated; the devil was in it but Jones and I should 
dine like heathen emperors. I set to work, asking after 
a restaurant; and I chose the wealthiest and most gas- 
tronomical-looking passers-by to ask from. Yet, al- 
though I had told them I was willing to pay anything 
in reason, one and all sent me off to cheap, fixed-price 
houses, where I would not have eaten that night for the 
cost of twenty dinners. I do not know if this were 
characteristic of New York, or whether it was only Jones 
and I who looked un-dinerly and discouraged enterpris- 



126 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ing suggestions. But at length, by our own sagacity, we 
found a French restaurant, where there was a French 
waiter, some fair French cooking, some so-called French 
wine, and French coffee to conclude the whole. I never 
entered into the feelings of Jack on land so completely as 
when I tasted that coffee. 

I suppose we had one of the "private rooms for fam- 
ilies'^ at Reunion House. It was very small, furnished 
with a bed, a chair, and some clothes-pegs; and it derived 
all that was necessary for the life of the human animal 
through two borrowed lights; one looking into the pas- 
sage, and the second opening, without sash, into another 
apartment, where three men fitfully snored, or in intervals 
of wakefulness, drearily mumbled to each other all night 
long. It will be observed that this was almost exactly 
the disposition of the room in M^Naughten's story. Jones 
had the bed; I pitched my camp upon the floor; he did 
not sleep until near morning, and I, for my part, never 
closed an eye. 

At sunrise I heard a cannon fired; and shortly after- 
wards the men in the next room gave over snoring for 
good, and began to rustle over their toilettes. The sound 
of their voices as they talked was low and moaning, like 
that of people watching by the sick. Jones, who had 
at last begun to doze, tumbled and murmured, and every 
now and then opened unconscious eyes upon me where 
I lay. I found myself growing eerier and eerier, for I 
daresay I was a little fevered by my restless night, and 
hurried to dress and get downstairs. 

You had to pass through the rain, which still fell thick 
and resonant, to reach a lavatory on the other side of 
the court. There were three basin-stands, and a few 
crumpled towels and pieces of wet soap, white and slip- 
pery like fish; nor should I forget a looking-glass and a 
pair of questionable combs. Another Scots lad was here. 



i 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 127 

scrubbing his face with a good will. He had been three 
months in New York and had not yet found a single job 
nor earned a single halfpenny. Up to the present, he 
also was exactly out of pocket by the amount of the 
fare. I began to grow sick at heart for my fellow-emi- 
grants. 

Of my nightmare wanderings in New York I spare to 
tell. I had a thousand and one things to do; only the 
day to do them in, and a journey across the continent 
before me in the evening. It rained with patient fury; 
every now and then I had to get under cover for a while 
in order, so to speak, to give my mackintosh a rest; for 
under this continued drenching it began to grow damp 
on the inside. I went to banks, post-oflBces, railway- 
offices, restaurants, publishers, book-sellers, money- 
changers, and wherever I went a pool would gather about 
my feet, and those who were careful of their floors would 
look on with an unfriendly eye. Wherever I went, too, 
the same traits struck me; the people were all surprisingly 
rude and surprisingly kind. The money-changer cross- 
questioned me like a French commissary, asking my age, 
my business, my average income, and my destination, 
beating down my attempts at evasion, and receiving my 
answers in silence; and yet when all was over, he shook 
hands with me up to the elbows, and sent his lad nearly 
a quarter of a mile in the rain to get me books at a 
reduction. Again, in a very large publishing and book- 
selling establishment, a man, who seemed to be the man- 
ager, received me as I had certainly never before been 
received in any human shop, indicated squarely that he 
put no faith in my honesty, and refused to look up the 
names of books or give me the slightest help or infor- 
mation, on the ground, like the steward, that it was none 
of his business. I lost my temper at last, said I was a 
stranger in America and not learned in their etiquette; 



128 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

but I would assure him, if he went to any bookseller in 
England, of more handsome usage. The boast was per- 
haps exaggerated; but like many a long shot, it struck the 
gold. The manager passed at once from one extreme 
to the other; I may say that from that moment he loaded 
me with kindness; he gave me all sorts of good advice, 
wrote me down addresses, and came bare-headed into 
the rain to point me out a restaurant, where I might 
lunch, nor even then did he seem to think that he had 
done enough. These are (it is as well to be bold in state- 
ment) the manners of America. It is this same oppo- 
sition that has most struck me in people of almost all 
classes and from east to west. By the time a man had 
about strung me up to be the death of him by his insult- 
ing behaviour, he himself would be just upon the point of 
melting into confidence and serviceable attentions. Yet 
I suspect, although I have met with the like in so many 
parts, that this must be the character of some particular 
state or group of states; for in America, and this again in 
all classes, you will find some of the softest-mannered 
gentlemen in the world. 

I was so w^et when I got back to MitchelFs toward 
the evening, that I had simply to divest myself of my 
shoes, socks and trousers, and leave them behind for 
the benefit of New York city. No fire could have dried 
them ere I had to start; and to pack them in their present 
condition was to spread ruin among my other possessions. 
With a heavy heart I said farewell to them as they lay 
a pulp in the middle of a pool upon the floor of Mitchell's 
kitchen. I wonder if they are dry by now. Mitchell 
hired a man to carry my baggage to the station, which 
was hard by, accompanied me thither himself, and rec- 
ommended me to the particular attention of the officials. 
No one could have been kinder. Those who are out of 
pocket may go safely to Reunion House, where they will 



THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT 129 

get decent meals and find an honest and obliging land- 
lord. I owed him this word of thanks, before I enter 
fairly on the second and far less agreeable chapter of my 
emigrant experience. 



ESSAYS 



i X - 



ESSAYS 
AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS » 

"Boswell: We grow weary when idle. 

"Johnson: That is, sir, because others being busy, we want com- 
pany; but if we were idle, there would be no growing weary; we 
should all entertain one another." 

Just now, when every one is bound, under pain of a 
decree in absence convicting them of /<^5e-respectability,^ 
to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein 
with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from 
the opposite party who are content when they have 
enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, 
savours a little of bravado and gasconade.^ And yet this 
should not be. Idleness so called, which does not consist 
in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized 
in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as 
good a right to state its position as industry itself. It is 
admitted that the presence of people who refuse to enter 
in the great handicap race for sixpenny pieces, is at once 
an insult and a disenchantment for those who do. A 

^ Begun before July, 1876; rejected by the Macmillan Magazine y 
afterward accepted for the Cornhill by its discriminating editor, 
Leslie Stephen, and first printed in that magazine July, 1877. It 
was reprinted in the Virginibus Puerisque volume, 1881. ^' A paper 
called 'A Defence of Idlers' (which is really a defence of R. L. S.)/' 
Stevenson called it in a letter to Mrs. Sitwell. But Stevenson needed 
no such defence, for although he knew how to be idle wisely when 
idle at all, he was usually one of the most industrious of men. 

2 From the French verb lesevy ^Ho injure." Stevenson's phrase 
is a humorous take-off on the common expression lese-majeste, " in- 
jured majesty," i.e., high treason. 

^ Boasting. Literary tradition has always represented the people 
of Gascony, France, as boasters, hence the term. 

133 



134 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

fine fellow (as we see so many) takes his determination, 
votes for the sixpences, and in the emphatic Americanism, 
"goes for'^ them. And while such an one is ploughing 
distressfully up the road, it is not hard to understand his 
resentment, when he perceives cool persons in the mea- 
dows by the wayside, lying with a handkerchief over 
their ears and a glass at their elbow. Alexander is 
touched in a very delicate place by the disregard of 
Diogenes. Where was the glory of having taken Rome 
for these tumultuous barbarians, who poured into the 
Senate house, and found the Fathers sitting silent and 
unmoved by their success? It is a sore thing to have 
laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when 
all is done, find humanity indiflFerent to your achievement. 
Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers 
have only a superficial toleration for those who know lit- 
tle of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and 
people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who 
have none. 

But though this is one diflBculty of the subject, it is not 
the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speak- 
ing against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry^ for 
speaking like a fool. The greatest diflSculty with most 
subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to remem- 
ber this is an apology. It is certain that much may be 
judiciously argued in favour of diligence; only there is 
something to be said against it, and that is what, on the 
present occasion, I have to say. To state one argument 
is not necessarily to be deaf to all others, and that a man 
has written a book of travels in Montenegro, is no reason 
why he should never have been to Richmond. 

It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a 
good deal idle in youth. For though here and there a 
Lord Macaulay may escape from school honours with all 
* A proverbial expression, meaning to ostracise. 



AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS 135 

his wits about him, most boys pay so dear for their medals 
that they never afterwards have a shot in their locker, 
and begin the world bankrupt. And the same holds true 
during all the time a lad is educating himself, or suffer- 
ing others to educate him. It must have been a very 
foolish old gentleman who addressed Johnson at Oxford 
in these words: "Young man, ply your book diligently 
now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years 
come upon you, you will find that poring upon books 
will be but an irksome task.^^ The old gentleman 
seems to have been unaware that many other things 
besides reading grow irksome, and not a few become 
impossible, by the time a man has to use spectacles and 
cannot walk without a stick. Books are good enough 
in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless sub- 
stitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of 
Shalott, peering into a mirror, with your back turned on 
all the bustle and glamour of reality. And if a man reads 
very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he will have 
little time for thoughts. 

If you look back on your own education, I am sure it 
will not be the full, vivid, instructive hours of truantry 
that you regret; you would rather cancel some lack- 
lustre periods between sleep and waking in the class. 
For my own part, I have attended a good many lectures 
in my time. I still remember that the spinning of a top 
is a case of Kinetic Stability. I still remember that Em- 
phyteusis is not a disease, nor Stillicide a crime. But 
though I would not willingly part with such scraps of 
science, I do not set the same store by them, as by cer- 
tain other odds and ends that I came by in the open 
street while I was playing truant. This is not the mo- 
ment to dilate on that mighty place of education, which 
was the favourite school of Dickens and of Balzac, and 
turns out yearly many inglorious masters in the Science 



136 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

of the Aspects of Life. Suffice it to say this: if a lad 
does not learn in the streets, it is because he has no fac- 
ulty of learning. Nor is the truant always in the streets, 
for if he prefers, he may go out by the gardened suburbs 
into the country. He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs 
over a burn, and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune 
of the water on the stones. A bird will sing in the 
thicket. And there he may fall into a vein of kindly 
thought, and see things in a new perspective. Why, if 
this be not education, what is? We may conceive Mr. 
Worldly Wiseman^ accosting such an one, and the con- 
versation that should thereupon ensue: — 

"How now, young fellow, what dost thou here?^* 

"Truly, sir, I take mine ease.'^ 

" Is not this the hour of the class ? and should'st thou 
not be plying thy Book with diligence, to the end thou 
mayest obtain knowledge ?^^ 

"Nay, but thus also I follow after Learning, by your 
leave." 

"Learning, quotha! After what fashion, I pray thee? 
Is it mathematics?" 

"No, to be sure." 

"Is it metaphysics?" 

"Nor that." 

" Is it some language ? " 

"Nay, it is no language." 

"Is it a trade?" 

"Nor a trade neither." 

"Why, then, what is 't?" 

"Indeed, sir, as a time may soon come for me to go 
upon Pilgrimage, I am desirous to note what is com- 
monly done by persons in my case, and where are the 
ugliest Sloughs and Thickets on the Road; as also, what 
manner of Staff is of the best service. Moreover, I lie 
* A character in Bunyan's Pilgrim^ s Progress, 



AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS 137 

here, by this water, to leam by root-of-heart a lesson 
which my master teaches me to call Peace, or Content- 
ment/' 

Hereupon Mr. Worldly Wiseman was much commoved 
with passion, and shaking his cane with a very threatful 
countenance, broke forth upon this wise: "Learning, 
quotha!" said he; " I would have all such rogues scourged 
by the Hangman T' 

And so he would go his way, ruflBing out his cravat 
with a crackle of starch, like a turkey when it spread its 
feathers. 

Now this, of Mr. Wiseman's, is the common opinion. 
A fact is not called a fact, but a piece of gossip, if it does 
not fall into one of your scholastic categories. An in- 
quiry must be in some acknowledged direction, with a 
name to go by; or else you are not inquiring at all, only 
lounging; and the work-house is too good for you. It 
is supposed that all knowledge is at the bottom, of a well, 
or the far end of a telescope. Sainte-Beuve,^ as he grew 
older, came to regard all experience as a single great 
book, in which to study for a few years ere we go hence; 
and it seemed all one to him whether you should read 
in Chapter xx., which is the differential calculus, or in 
Chapter xxxix., which is hearing the band play in the 
gardens. As a matter of fact, an intelligent person, look- 
ing out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a 
smile on his face all the time, will get more true educa- 
tion than many another in a life of heroic vigils. There 
is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found 
upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but 
it is all round about you, and for the trouble of looking 
that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts 
of life. While others are filling their memory with a 
lumber of words, one-half of which they will forget be- 
^ A great French writer and critic (1804-1869). 



138 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

fore the week be out, your truant may learn some really 
useful art: to play the fiddle, to know a good cigar, or 
to speak with ease and opportunity to all varieties of 
men. Many who have "plied their book diligently,^' 
and know all about some one branch or another of ac- 
cepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and 
owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dys- 
peptic in all the better and brighter parts of life. Many 
make a large fortune, who remain underbred and pa- 
thetically stupid to the last. And meantime there goes 
the idler, who began life along with them — by your 
leave, a different picture. He has had time to take care 
of his health and his spirits; he has been a great deal in 
the open air, which is the most salutary of all things for 
both body and mind; and if he has never read the great 
Book in very recondite places, he has dipped into it and 
skimmed it over to excellent purpose. Might not the 
student afford some Hebrew roots, and the business man 
some of his half-crowns, for a share of the idler's knowl- 
edge of life at large, and Art of Living? Nay, and the 
idler has another and more important quality than these. 
I mean his wisdom. He who has much looked on at 
the childish satisfaction of other people in their hobbies, 
will regard his own with only a very ironical indulgence. 
He will not be heard among the dogmatists. He will 
have a great and cool allowance for all sorts of people 
and opinions. If he finds no out-of-the-way truths, he 
will identify himself with no very burning falsehood. 
His way takes him along a by-road, not much frequented, 
but very even and pleasant, which is called Common- 
place Lane, and leads to the Belvedere^ of Common- 
sense. Thence he shall command an agreeable, if no 
very noble prospect; and while others behold the East 

^ An Italian word, used here in its original meaning, which was, 
a place of observation on top of a house. 



AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS 139 

and West, the Devil and the Sunrise, he will be content- 
edly aware of a sort of morning hour upon all sublunary 
things, with an army of shadows running speedily and 
in many different directions into the great daylight of 
Eternity. The shadows and the generations, the shrill 
doctors and the plangent wars, go by into ultimate 
silence and emptiness; but underneath all this, a man 
may see, out of the Belvedere windows, much green and 
peaceful landscape; many firelit parlours; good people 
laughing, drinking, and making love as they did before 
the Flood or the French Revolution; and the old shep- 
herd telling his tale under the hawthorn. 

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk 
or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a 
faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a 
strong sense of personal identity. There is a sort of 
dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely 
conscious of living except in the exercise of some con- 
ventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the coun- 
try, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they 
pine for their desk or their study. They have no curi- 
osity; they cannot give themselves over to random 
provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise 
of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity 
lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. 
It is no good speaking to such folk: they cannot be idle, 
their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those 
hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furi- 
ous moiling in the gold-mill. When they do not require 
to go to the oiSBce, when they are not hungry and have 
no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank 
to them. If they have to wait an hour or so for a train, 
they fall into a stupid trance with their eyes open. To 
see them, you would suppose there was nothing to look 
at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they 



140 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

were paralysed or alienated; and yet very possibly they 
are hard workers in their own way, and have good eye- 
sight for a flaw in a deed or a turn of the market. They 
have been to school and college, but all the time they had 
their eye on the medal; they have gone about in the world 
and mixed with clever people, but all the time they were 
thinking of their own affairs. As if a man^s soul were not 
too small to begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed 
theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they 
are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of 
all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub 
against another, while they wait for the train. Before 
he was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; 
when he was twenty, he would have stared at the girls; 
but now the pipe is smoked out, the snuff-box empty, 
and my gentleman sits bolt upright upon a bench, with 
lamentable eyes. This does not appeal to me as being 
Success in Life. 

But it is not only the person himself who suffers from 
his busy habits, but his wife and children, his friends 
and relations, and down to the very people he sits with 
in a railway carriage or an omnibus. Perpetual devo- 
tion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sus- 
tained by perpetual neglect of many other things. And 
it is not by any means certain that a man's business is 
the most important thing he has to do. To an impar- 
tial estimate it will seem clear that many of the wisest, 
most virtuous, and most beneficent parts that are to be 
played upon the Theatre of Life are filled by gratuitous 
performers, and pass, among the world at large, as 
phases of idleness. For in that Theatre, not only the 
walking gentlemen, singing chambermaids, and diligent 
fiddlers in the orchestra, but those who look on and 
clap their hands from the benches, do really play a part 
and fulfil important offices towards the general result. 



AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS 141 

You are no doubt very dependent on the care of your 
lawyer and stockbroker, of the guards and signalmen 
who convey you rapidly from place to place, and the 
policemen who walk the streets for your protection; but 
is there not a thought of gratitude in your heart for cer- 
tain other benefactors who set you smiling when they 
fall in your way, or season your dinner with good com- 
pany? Colonel Newcome^ helped to lose his friend's 
money; Fred Bayham had an ugly trick of borrowing 
shirts; and yet they were better people to fall among 
than Mr. Barnes. And though Falstaff was neither 
sober nor very honest, I think I could name one or two 
long-faced Barabbases whom the world could better have 
done without. Hazlitt mentions that he was more sen- 
sible of obligation to Northcote, who had never done 
him anything he could call a service, than to his whole 
circle of ostentatious friends; for he thought a good 
companion emphatically the greatest benefactor. I 
know there are people in the world who cannot feel grate- 
ful unless the favour has been done them at the cost of 
pain and diflBculty. But this is a churlish disposition. 
A man may send you six sheets of letter-paper covered 
with the most entertaining gossip, or you may pass half 
an hour pleasantly, perhaps profitably, over an article of 
his; do you think the service would be greater, if he had 
made the manuscript in his heart's blood, like a compact 
with the devil ? Do you really fancy you should be more 
beholden to your correspondent, if he had been damning 
you all the while for your importunity? Pleasures are 
more beneficial than duties because, like the quality of 

^ Colonel Newcome, Fred Bayham, and Mr. Barnes are characters 
in Thackeray's novel, The Newcomes, the two former impractical 
but lovable, the third hard-headed and heartless. Falstaff is a most 
delightful reprobate in Shakespeare's Henry IV; Barabbas the Jew- 
ish thief who was released instead of Christ. Hazlitt (1778-1830) 
was a famous English essayist, Northcote (1746-1831) a less well- 
known artist and writer. 



142 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

mercy, they are not strained, and they are twice blest. 
There must always be two to a kiss, and there may be a 
score in a jest; but wherever there is an element of sac- 
rifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, among 
generous people, received with confusion. There is no 
duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. 
By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the 
world, which remain unknowQ even to ourselves, or 
when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the 
benefactor. The other day, a ragged, barefoot boy ran 
down the street after a marble, with so jolly an air that 
he set every one he passed into a good humour; one of 
these persons, who had been delivered from more than 
usually black thoughts, stopped the little fellow and gave 
him some money with this remark: "You see what 
sometimes comes of looking pleased.'^ If he had looked 
pleased before, he had now to look both pleased and 
mystified. For my part, I justify this encouragement of 
smiling rather than tearful children; I do not wish to pay 
for tears anyw^here but upon the stage; but I am pre- 
pared to deal largely in the opposite commodity. A 
happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a 
five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of good- 
will; and their entrance into a room is as though another 
candle had been lighted. We need not care whether 
they could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do 
a better thing than that, they practically demonstrate 
the great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life. Conse- 
quently, if a person cannot be happy without remaining 
idle, idle he should remain. It is a revolutionary pre- 
cept; but thanks to hunger and the workhouse, one not 
easily to be abused; and within practical limits, it is one 
of the most incontestable truths in the whole Body of 
Morality. Look at one of your industrious fellows for 
a moment, I beseech you. He sows hurry and reaps 



AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS 143 

indigestion; he puts a vast deal of activity out to inter- 
est, and receives a large measure of nervous derangement 
in return. Either he absents himself entirely from all 
fellowship, and lives a recluse in a garret, with carpet 
slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he comes among people 
swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole ner- 
vous system, to discharge some temper before he returns 
to work. I do not care how much or how well he works, 
this fellow is an evil feature in other people's lives. They 
would be happier if he were dead. They could easier do 
without his services in the Circumlocution OflSce, than 
they can tolerate his fractious spirits. He poisons life at 
the w^ell-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand 
by a scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden by a 
peevish uncle. 

And what, in God's name, is all this pother about? 
For what cause do they embitter their own and other 
people's lives? That a man should publish three or 
thirty articles a year, that he should finish or not finish his 
great allegorical picture, are questions of little interest to 
the world. The ranks of life are full; and although a 
thousand fall, there are always some to go into the 
breach. When they told Joan of Arc she should be at 
home minding women's work, she answered there w^ere 
plenty to spin and wash. And so, even with your own 
rare gifts! When nature is ^'so careless of the single 
life," why should we coddle ourselves into the fancy 
that our own is of exceptional importance? Suppose 
Shakespeare had been knocked on the head some dark 
night in Sir Thomas Lucy's preserves, the world would 
have wagged on better or worse, the pitcher gone to the 
w^ell, the scythe to the corn, and the student to his book; 
and no one been any the wiser of the loss. There are 
not many works extant, if you look the alternative all 
over, which are worth the price of a pound of tobacco to 



144 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

a man of limited means. This is a sobering reflection 
for the proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobac- 
conist may, upon consideration, find no great cause for 
personal vainglory in the phrase; for although tobacco 
is an admirable sedative, the qualities necessary for re- 
tailing it are neither rare nor precious in themselves. 
Alas and alas! you may take it how you will, but the 
services of no single individual are indispensable. Atlas 
was just a gentleman with a protracted nightmare! And 
yet you see merchants who go and labour themselves 
into a great fortune and thence into the bankruptcy court; 
scribblers who keep scribbling at little articles until their 
temper is a cross to all who come about them, as though 
Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead 
of a pyramid; and fine young men who work themselves 
into a decline, and are driven off in a hearse with white 
plumes upon it. Would you not suppose these persons 
had been whispered, by the Master of the Ceremonies, 
the promise of some momentous destiny? and that this 
lukewarm bullet on which they play their farces was the 
bulFs-eye and centrepoint of all the universe ? And yet 
it is not so. The ends for which they give away their 
priceless youth, for all they know, may be chimerical or 
hurtful; the glory and riches they expect may never come, 
or may find them indiflFerent; and they and the world 
they inhabit are so inconsiderable that the mind freezes 
at the thought. 



MS TRIPLEX^ 

The changes wrought by death are in themselves so 
sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their 
consequences, that the thing stands alone in man's ex- 
perience, and has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes 
all other accidents because it is the last of them. Some- 
times it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug; 
sometimes it lays a regular siege and creeps upon their 
citadel during a score of years. And when the business 
is done, there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, 
and a pin knocked out by which many subsidiary friend- 
ships hung together. There are empty chairs, solitary 
walks, and single beds at night. Again, in taking away 
our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but 
leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable 
residue, which must be hurriedly concealed. Hence a 
whole chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind, 
from the pyramids of Egypt to the gibbets and dule^ trees 
of mediaeval Europe. The poorest persons have a bit of 
pageant going towards the tomb; memorial stones are 
set up over the least memorable; and, in order to preserve 
some show of respect for what remains of our old loves 
and friendships, we must accompany it with much 

^ ^ First published in The Cornhill Magazine for April, 1878. The 
time when this essay was written was at once a strenuous and hope- 
ful one for its author, as his first printed book, An Inland Voyage, was 
then being prepared for the press. The title is from a phrase used 
by Horace, ces triplex circa pectus , " breast enclosed by triple brass,'' 
ces being used by Horace as a symbol of indomitable courage. 
The essay is generally considered Stevenson's masterpiece; and 
its noble description of a happy, fearless, painless death seems al- 
most a prophecy of his own end. It was included in Virginibiis 
PuerisquCj 1881. 
^ A dule or "dool" was a stake used to mark boundariea 

145 



146 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

grimly ludicrous ceremonial, and the hired undertaker 
parades before the door. All this, and much more of the 
same sort, accompanied by the eloquence of poets, has 
gone a great way to put humanity in error; nay, in many 
philosophies the error has been embodied and laid down 
with every circumstance of logic; although in real life 
the bustle and swiftness, in leaving people little time to 
think, have not left them time enough to go dangerously 
wrong in practice. 

As a matter of fact, although few things are spoken 
of with more fearful whisperings than this prospect of 
death, few have less influence on conduct under healthy 
circumstances. We have all heard of cities in South 
America built upon the side of fiery mountains, and how, 
even in this tremendous neighbourhood, the inhabitants 
are not a jot more impressed by the solemnity of mortal 
conditions than if they were delving gardens in the green- 
est corner of England. There are serenades and suppers 
and much gallantry among the myrtles overhead; and 
meanwhile the foundation shudders underfoot, the bowels 
of the mountain growl, and at any moment living ruin 
may leap sky-high into the moonlight, and tumble man 
and his merry-making in the dust. In the eyes of very 
young people, and very dull old ones, there is something 
indescribably reckless and desperate in such a picture. 
It seems not credible that respectable married people, 
with umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit of sup- 
per within quite a long distance of a fiery mountain; ordi- 
nary life begins to smell of high-handed debauch when 
it is carried on so close to a catastrophe; and even cheese 
and salad, it seems, could hardly be relished in such cir- 
cumstances without something like a defiance of the Cre- 
ator. It should be a place for nobody but hermits 
dwelling in prayer and maceration, or mere born-devils 
drowning care in a perpetual carouse. 



^S TRIPLEX 147 

And yet, when one comes to think upon it calmly, 
the situation of these South American citizens forms only 
a very pale figure for the state of ordinary mankind. 
This world itself, travelling blindly and swiftly in over- 
crowded space, among a million other worlds travelling 
blindly and swiftly in contrary directions, may very well 
come by a knock that would set it into explosion like 
a penny squib. And what, pathologically looked at, is 
the human body with all its organs, but a mere bagful of 
petards ? The least of these is as dangerous to the whole 
economy as the ship's powder-magazine to the ship; and 
with every breath we breathe, and every meal we eat, we 
are putting one or more of them in peril. If we clung as 
devotedly as some philosophers pretend we do to the 
abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they 
make out we are, for the subversive accident that ends it 
all, the trumpets might sound by the hour and no one 
would follow them into battle — the blue-peter^ might fly 
at the truck, but who would climb into a sea-going ship ? 
Think (if these philosophers were right) with what a 
preparation of spirit we should affront the daily peril of 
the dinner-table: a deadlier spot than any battle-field in 
history, where the far greater proportion of our ancestors 
have miserably left their bones! What woman would 
ever be lured into marriage, so much more dangerous 
than the wildest sea ? And what would it be to grow old ? 
For, after a certain distance, every step we take in life 
we find the ice growing thinner below our feet, and all 
around us and behind us we see our contemporaries 
going through. By the time a man gets well into the 
seventies, his continued existence is a mere miracle; and 
when he lays his old bones in bed for the night, there 
is an overwhelming probability that he will never see 
the day. Do the old men mind it, as a matter of fact? 
* A flag used as a signal for sailing. 



148 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Why, no. They were never merrier; they have their grog 
at night, and tell the raciest stories; they hear of the death 
of people about their own age, or even younger, not as if 
it was a grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleas- 
ure at having outlived some one else; and when a draught 
might puff them out like a guttering candle, or a bit of 
a stumble shatter them like so much glass, their old 
hearts keep sound and unaffrighted, and they go on, 
bubbling with laughter, through years of man's age com- 
pared to which the valley at Balaclava^ was as safe and 
peaceful as a village cricket-green on Sunday. It may 
fairly be questioned (if we look to the peril only) whether 
it was a much more daring feat for Curtius^ to plunge 
into the gulf, than for any old gentleman of ninety to doff 
his clothes and clamber into bed. 

Indeed, it is a memorable subject for consideration, 
with what unconcern and gaiety mankind pricks on 
along the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The whole 
way is one w^ilderness of snares, and the end of it, for 
those who fear the last pinch, is irrevocable ruin. And 
yet we go spinning through it all, like a party for the 
Derby .^ Perhaps the reader remembers one of the hu- 
morous devices of the deified Caligula:^ how he en- 
couraged a vast concourse of holiday-makers on to his 
bridge over Baise bay; and when they were in the height 
of their enjoyment, turned loose the Praetorian guards 
among the company, and had them tossed into the sea. 
This is no bad miniature of the dealings of nature with 
the transitory race of man. Only, what a chequered 
picnic we have of it, even while it lasts! and into what 

^ Scene of the famous charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean 
War. 

2 According to tradition, a Roman who sacrificed his Hfe for his 
country, leaping into a gulf to fulfil the requirements of an oracle. 

^ Derby Day, date of the greatest racing event in England. 

* One of the worst of the Roman tyrants, reigned 37-41 A. d. 



JES TRIPLEX 149 

great waters, not to be crossed by any swimmer, God's 
pale Praetorian throws us over in the end! 

We live the time that a match flickers; we pop the 
cork of a ginger-beer bottle, and the earthquake swal- 
lows us on the instant. Is it not odd, is it not incon- 
gruous, is it not, in the highest sense of human speech, 
incredible, that we should think so highly of the ginger- 
beer, and regard so little the devouring earthquake? 
The love of Life and the fear of Death are two famous 
phrases that grow harder to understand the more we 
think about them. It is a well-known fact that an im- 
mense proportion of boat accidents would never hap- 
pen if people held the sheet in their hands instead of 
making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of a 
professional mariner or some landsman with shattered 
nerves, every one of God's creatures makes it fast. A 
strange instance of man's unconcern and brazen bold- 
ness in the face of death ! 

We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrases, 
which we import into daily talk with noble inappro- 
priateness. We have no idea of what death is, apart 
from its circumstances and some of its consequences to 
others; and although we have some experience of living, 
there is not a man on earth who has flown so high into 
abstraction as to have any practical guess at the mean- 
ing of the word life. All literature, from Job and Omar 
Khayyam to Thomas Carlyle or Walt Whitman, is but an 
attempt to look upon the human state with such large- 
ness of view as shall enable us to rise from the consider- 
ation of living to the Definition of Life. And our sages 
give us about the best satisfaction in their power when 
they say that it is a vapour, or a show, or made out of 
the same stuff with dreams. Philosophy, in its more 
rigid sense, has been at the same work for ages; and after 
a myriad bald heads have wagged over the problem. 



150 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and piles of words have been heaped one upon another 
into dry and cloudy volumes without end, philosophy has 
the honour of laying before us, with modest pride, her 
contribution towards the subject: that life is a Permanent 
Possibility of Sensation. Truly a fine result! A man 
may very well love beef, or hunting, or a woman; but 
surely, surely, not a Permanent Possibility of Sensation! 
He may be afraid of a precipice, or a dentist, or a large 
enemy with a club, or even an undertaker's man; but not 
certainly of abstract death. We may trick with the word 
life in its dozen senses until we are weary of tricking; 
w^e may argue in terms of all the philosophies on earth, 
but one fact remains true throughout — that we do not 
love life, in the sense that we are greatly preoccupied 
about its conservation; that we do not, properly speaking, 
love life at all, but living. Into the views of the least 
careful there will enter some degree of providence; no 
man's eyes are fixed entirely on the passing hour; but 
although we have some anticipation of good health, good 
weather, wine, active employment, love, and self-approval, 
the sum of these anticipations does not amount to any- 
thing like a general view of life's possibilities and issues; 
nor are those who cherish them most vividly at all the 
most scrupulous of their personal safety. To be deeply 
interested in the accidents of our existence, to enjoy 
keenly the mixed texture of human experience, rather 
leads a man to disregard precautions, and risk his neck 
against a straw. For surely the love of living is stronger 
in an Alpine climber roping over a peril, or a hunter rid- 
ing merrily at a stiff fence, than in a creature who lives 
upon a diet and walks a measured distance in the interest 
of his constitution. 

There is a great deal of very vile nonsense talked 
upon both sides of the matter: tearing divines reducing 
life to the dimensions of a mere funeral procession, so 



.ES TRIPLEX 151 

short as to be hardly decent; and melancholy unbe- 
lievers yearning for the tomb as if it were a world too far 
away. Both sides must feel a little ashamed of their 
performances now and again when they draw in their 
chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle of 
wine is an answer to most standard works upon the ques- 
tion. When a man's heart warms to his viands, he for- 
gets a great deal of sophistry, and soars into a rosy zone 
of contemplation. Death may be knocking at the door, 
like the Commander's statue;^ w^e have something else in 
hand, thank God, and let him knock. Passing bells are 
ringing all the w^orld over. All the world over, and every 
hour,, some one is parting company with all his aches and 
ecstasies. For us also the trap is laid. But we are so 
fond of life that we have no leisure to entertain the terror 
of death. It is a honeymoon with us all through, and 
none of the longest. Small blame to us if we give our 
whole hearts to this glowing bride of ours, to the appetites, 
to honour, to the hungry curiosity of the mind, to the 
pleasure of the eyes in nature, and the pride of our own 
nimble bodies. 

We all of us appreciate the sensations; but as for car- 
ing about the Permanence of the Possibility, a man's 
head is generally very bald, and his senses very dull, 
before he comes to that. Whether we regard life as a 
lane leading to a dead wall — a mere bag's end, as the 
French say — or w^hether we think of it as a vestibule or 
gymnasium, where we w^ait our turn and prepare our fac- 
ulties for some more noble destiny; whether we thun- 
der in a pulpit, or pule in little atheistic poetry-books, 
about its vanity and brevity; whether we look justly for 
years of health and vigour, or are about to mount into a 

^ In the story of Don Juan (see Moliere's play of that name) the 
hero has an adventure with a statue temporarily endowed with 
life. 



152 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Bath-chair/ as a step towards the hearse; in each and all 
of these views and situations there is but one conclusion 
possible: that a man should stop his ears against paralys- 
ing terror, and run the race that is set before him with a 
single mind. No one surely could have recoiled with 
more heartache and terror from the thought of death 
than our respected lexicographer;^ and yet we know how 
little it affected his conduct, how wisely and boldly he 
walked, and in what a fresh and lively vein he spoke of 
life. Already an old man, he ventured on his Highland 
tour; and his heart, bound with triple brass, did not 
recoil before twenty-seven individual cups of tea. As 
courage and intelligence are the two qualities best worth 
a good man^s cultivation, so it is the first part of intelli- 
gence to recognise our precarious estate in life, and the 
first part of courage to be not at all abashed before the 
fact. A frank and somewhat headlong carriage, not 
looking too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlin re- 
gret over the past, stamps the man who is well armoured 
for this world. 

And not only well armoured for himself, but a good 
friend and a good citizen to boot. We do not go to 
cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as 
panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcass, 
has most time to consider others. That eminent chemist 
who took his walks abroad in tin shoes, and subsisted 
wholly upon tepid milk, had all his work cut out for him 
in considerate dealings with his own digestion. So soon 
as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a 
dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis 
of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink spiritually; 
he develops a fancy for parlours with a regulated tem- 

^An invalid's chair; named from Bath, the well-known health 
resort. 

^ Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of the famous Dictionary. 



iES TRIPLEX 153 

perature, and takes his morality on the principle di tin 
shoes and tepid milk. The care of one important body 
or soul becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the 
outer world begin to come thin and faint into the parlour 
with the regulated temperature; and the tin shoes go 
equably forward over blood and rain. To be overwise 
is to ossify; and the scruple-monger ends by standing 
stockstilL Now the man who has his heart on his 
sleeve, and a good whirling weathercock of a brain, who 
reckons his life as a thing to be dashingly used and 
cheerfully hazarded, makes a very different acquaintance 
of the world, keeps all his pulses going true and fast, and 
gathers impetus as he runs, until, if he be running tow- 
ards anything better than wildfire, he may shoot up and 
become a constellation in the end. Lord look after his 
health, Lord have a care of his soul, says he; and he has 
at the key of the position, and swashes through incon- 
gruity and peril towards his aim. Death is on all sides 
of him with pointed batteries, as he is on all sides of 
all of us; unfortunate surprises gird him round; mim- 
mouthed friends and relations hold up their hands in 
quite a little elegiacal synod about his path: and what 
cares he for all this ? Being a true lover of living, a fel- 
low with something pushing and spontaneous in his in- 
side, he must, like any other soldier, in any other stirring, 
deadly warfare, push on at his best pace until he touch 
the goal. "A peerage or Westminster Abbey!'' cried 
Nelson in his bright, boyish, heroic manner. These are 
great incentives; not for any of these, but for the plain 
satisfaction of living, of being about their business in 
some sort or other, do the brave, serviceable men of 
every nation tread down the nettle danger, and pass fly- 
ingly over all the stumbling-blocks of prudence. Think 
of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indiffer- 
ence to mortal limitation that set him upon his diction- 



154 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ary, and carried him through triumphantly until the end ! 
Who, if he were wisely considerate of things at large, 
would ever embark upon any work much more consider- 
able than a halfpenny post-card? Who would project 
a serial novel, after Thackeray and Dickens^ had each 
fallen in mid-course ? Who would find heart enough to 
begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of 
death? 

And, after all, what sorry and pitiful quibbling all this 
is! To forego all the issues of living in a parlour with a 
regulated temperature — as if that were not to die a hun- 
dred times over, and for ten years at a stretch! As if it 
were not to die in one's otsti lifetime, and without even 
the sad immunities of death! As if it were not to die, 
and yet be the patient spectators of our own pitiable 
change! The Permanent Possibility is preserved, but the 
sensations carefully held at arm's length, as if one kept 
a photographic plate in a dark chamber. It is better to 
lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a 
miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die 
daily in the sick-room. By all means begin your folio; 
even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he 
hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see 
what can be accomplished in a week. It is not only in 
finished undertakings that we ought to honour useful 
labour. A spirit goes out of the man who means execu- 
tion, which outlives the most untimely ending. All who 
have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done 
good work, although they may die before they have the 
time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and 
cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the 
world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even 
if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid- 
career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous 

^ Thackeray and Dickens each left a novel unfinished at his death. 



^S TRIPLEX 155 

foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of 
boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and 
silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such 
a termination? and does not life go down with a better 
grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miser- 
ably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the 
Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods 
love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort 
of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age 
it overtake the man, this is to die young. Death has not 
been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his 
heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point 
of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The 
noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the 
trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with 
him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded 
spirit shoots into the spiritual land. 



EL DORADO^ 

It seems as if a great deal were attainable in a world 
where there are so many marriages and decisive battles, 
and where we all, at certain hours of the day, and with 
great gusto and despatch, stow a portion of victuals finally 
and irretrievably into the bag which contains us. And it 
would seem also, on a hasty view, that the attainment of 
as much as possible was the one goal of man's conten- 
tious life. And yet, as regards the spirit, this is but a 
semblance. We live in an ascending scale when we live 
happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series. 
There is always a new horizon for onward-looking men, 
and although we dwell on a small planet, immersed in 
petty business and not enduring beyond a brief period of 
years, we are so constituted that our hopes are inaccessi- 
ble, like stars, and the term of hoping is prolonged until 
the term of life. To be truly happy is a question of how 
we begin and not of how we end, of what we want and not 
of what we have. An aspiration is a joy forever, a pos- 
session as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we 
can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a 
revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these 
is to be spiritually rich. Life is only a very dull and ill- 
directed theatre unless we have some interests in the 

^ Published May 11, 1878, in London, a newly founded weekly re- 
view under the editorship at first of Mr. Glasgow Brown and later 
of Mr. Henley, both friends of Stevenson. In 1881 the essay was 
reprinted in Virginibus Puerisque. El Dorado was the name of a 
mythical country of fabulous wealth, long supposed to exist in 
northern South America. The phrase is Spanish and means "The 
Golden/' 

156 



EL DORADO 157 

piece; and to those who have neither art nor science, the 
world is a mere arrangement of colours, or a rough foot- 
w^ay where they may very well break their shins. It is 
in virtue of his own desires and curiosities that any man 
continues to exist with even patience, that he is charmed 
by the look of things and people, and that he wakens 
every morning with a renewed appetite for work and 
pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the two eyes through 
which he sees the world in the most enchanted colours: 
it is they that make women beautiful or fossils interesting: 
and the man may squander his estate and come to beg- 
gary, but if he keeps these two amulets he is still rich in 
the possibilities of pleasure. Suppose he could take one 
meal so compact and comprehensive that he should never 
hunger any more; suppose him, at a glance, to take in all 
the features of the world and allay the desire for knowl- 
edge; suppose him to do the like in any province of ex- 
perience — would not that man be in a poor way for 
amusement ever after? 

One who goes touring on foot with a single volume 
in his knapsack reads with circumspection, pausing often 
to reflect, and often laying the book down to contem- 
plate the landscape or the prints in the inn parlour; 
for he fears to come to an end of his entertainment, and 
be left companionless on the last stages of his journey. 
A young fellow recently finished the works of Thomas 
Carlyle, winding up, if we remember aright, with the ten 
note-books upon Frederick the Great. "What!'' cried 
the young fellow, in consternation, "is there no more 
Carlyle? Am I left to the daily papers?'' A more 
celebrated instance is that of Alexander, who wept bit- 
terly because he had no more worlds to subdue. And 
when Gibbon had finished the Decline and Fall,^ he had 

^ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Emjnre occupied the best 
years of Gibbon's life. 



158 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

only a few moments of joy; and it was with a "sober 
melancholy ^^ that he parted from his labours. 

Happily we all shoot at the moon with ineffectual ar- 
rows; our hopes are set on inaccessible El Dorado; we 
come to an end of nothing here below. Interests are 
only plucked up to sow themselves again, like mustard. 
You would think, when the child was born, there vfould 
be an end to trouble; and yet it is only the beginning 
of fresh anxieties; and when you have seen it through 
its teething and its education, and at last its marriage, 
alas! it is only to have new fears, new quivering sensi- 
bilities, with every day; and the health of your children's 
children grows as touching a concern as that of your own. 
Again, when you have married your wife, you would 
think you were got upon a hilltop, and might begin to go 
downward by an easy slope. But you have only ended 
courting to begin marriage. Falling in love and winning 
love are often diflBcult tasks to overbearing and rebellious 
spirits ; but to keep in love is also a business of some im- 
portance, to which both man and wife must bring kind- 
ness and goodwill. The true love story commences at 
the altar, when there lies before the married pair a most 
beautiful contest of wisdom and generosity, and a life- 
long struggle towards an unattainable ideal. Unattain- 
able? Ay, surely unattainable, from the very fact that 
they are two instead of one. 

" Of making books there is no end,^^ complained the 
Preacher;^ and did not perceive how highly he was 
praising letters as an occupation. There is no end, in- 
deed, to making books or experiments, or to travel, or 
to gathering wealth. Problem gives rise to problem. 
We may study forever, and we are never as learned as 
we would. We have never made a statue worthy of 
our dreams. And when we have discovered a continent, 
^ Ecclesiastes XII, 12. 



EL DORADO 159 

or crossed a chain of mountains, it is only to find another 
ocean or another plain upon the further side. In the 
infinite universe there is room for our swiftest diligence 
and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, which 
can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a private 
park, or in the neighbourhood of a single hamlet, the 
weather and the seasons keep so deftly changing that 
although we walk there for a lifetime there will be always 
something new to startle and delight us. 

There is only one wish realisable on the earth; only 
one thing that can be perfectly attained: Death. And 
from a variety of circumstances we have no one to tell 
us whether it be worth attaining. 

A strange picture we make on our way to our chimseras, 
ceaselessly marching, grudging ourselves the time for 
rest; indefatigable, adventurous pioneers. It is true that 
we shall never reach the goal; it is even more than prob- 
able that there is no such place; and if we lived for cen- 
turies and were endowed with the powers of a god, we 
should find ourselves not much nearer what we wanted 
at the end. O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied 
feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems 
to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, 
and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry 
the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own 
blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than 
to arrive, and the true success is to labour. 



TRUTH OF INTERCOURSES 

Among sayings that have a currency in spite of being 
wholly false upon the face of fhem for the sake of a half- 
truth upon another subject which is accidentally com- 
bined with the error, one of the grossest and broadest 
conveys the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell 
the truth and hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were. 
But the truth is one; it has first to be discovered, then 
justly and exactly uttered. Even with instruments spe- 
cially contrived for such a purpose — with a foot rule, a 
level, or a theodolite^ — it is not easy to be exact; it is 
easier, alas! to be inexact. From those who mark the 
divisions on a scale to those w^ho measure the boundaries 
of empires or the distance of the heavenly stars, it is by 
careful method and minute, unwearying attention that 
men rise even to material exactness or to sure knowledge 
even of external and constant things. But it is easier to 
draw the outline of a mountain than the changing ap- 
pearance of a face; and truth in human relations is of this 
more intangible and dubious order: hard to seize, harder 
to communicate. Veracity to facts in a loose, colloquial 
sense — not to say that I have been in Malabar when as 
a matter of fact I was never out of England, not to say 
that I have read Cervantes in the original when as a mat- 

^ Written shortly before Stevenson's first voyage to America, 
and published in The Cornhill Magazine, May, 1879, just a year be- 
fore the author's marriage. It was later included in the volume 
Virginibus Puerisque (published 1881) as the fourth of his talkg 
"to maidens and youths." 

^ A surveying instrument for measuring horizontal angles upon 
a graduated circle. 

160 



TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE 161 

ter of fact I know not one syllable of Spanish — this, in- 
deed, is easy and to^ the same degree unimportant in itself. 
Lies of this sort, according to circumstances, may or may 
not be important; in a certain sense even they may or may 
not be false. The habitual liar may be a very honest fel- 
low, and live truly with his wife and friends; while another 
man who never told a formal falsehood in his life may _ / 
yet be himself one lie — heart and face, from top to bot- ^v 
-tern. This is the kind of lie which poisons intimacy. 
And, vice versa, veracity to sentiment, truth in a relation, 
truth to your own heart and your friends, never to feign 
or falsify emotion — that is the truth which makes love 
possible and mankind happy. 

L'art de Men dire ^ is but a drawing-room accomplish- 
ment unless it be pressed into the service of the truth. 
The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write 
what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect 
him precisely as you wish. This is commonly under- 
stood in the case of books or set orations; even in mak- 
ing your will, or writing an explicit letter, some diflficulty 
is admitted by the world. But one thing you can never 
make Philistine^ natures understand; one thing, which 
yet lies on the surface, remains as unseizable to their wits 
as a high flight of metaphysics — namely, that the business 
of life is mainly carried on by means of this difficult art 
of literature, and according to a man's proficiency in that 
art shall be the freedom and the fulness of his intercourse 
with other men. Anybody, it is supposed, can say what 
he means; and, in spite of their notorious experience to 
the contrary, people so continue to suppose. Now, I 
simply open the last book I have been reading — Mr. Le- 
land's captivating English Gipsies. " It is said,'' I find 

^ The art of expressing oneself well. 

2 A common term in literature for men who emphasize the sordid 
and "practicar^ side of life at the expense of the spiritual and im- 
aginative. 



162 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

on p. 7, " that those who can converse with Irish peasants 
in their own native tongue form far higher opinions of 
their appreciation of the beautiful, and of the elements of 
humour and pathos in their hearts, than do those who 
know their thoughts only through the medium of English. 
I know from my own observations that this is quite the 
case with the Indians of North America, and it is un- 
questionably so with the gipsy/^ In short, where a man 
has not a full possession of the language, the most import- 
ant, because the most amiable, qualities of his nature have 
to lie buried and fallow; for the pleasure of comradeship, 
and the intellectual part of love, rest upon these very 
"elements of humour and pathos." Here is a man 
opulent in both, and for lack of a medium he can put none 
of it out to interest in the market of affection! But what 
is thus made plain to our apprehensions in the case of a 
foreign language is partially true even with the tongue 
w^e learned in childhood. Indeed, we all speak different 
dialects; one shall be copious and exact, another loose and 
meagre; but the speech of the ideal talker shall corre- 
spond and fit upon the truth of fact — not clumsily, obscur- 
ing lineaments, like a mantle, but cleanly adhering, like 
an athlete's skin. And what is the result ? That the one 
can open himself more clearly to his friends, and can en- 
joy more of what makes life truly valuable — intimacy 
with those he loves. An orator makes a false step; he em- 
ploys some trivial, some absurd, some vulgar phrase; 
in the turn of a sentence he insults, by a side wind, those 
whom he is labouring to charm; in speaking to one senti- 
ment he unconsciously ruffles another in parenthesis; and 
you are not surprised, for you know his task to be delicate 
and filled with perils. " O frivolous mind of man, light 
ignorance!'' As if yourself, when you seek to explain 
some misunderstanding or excuse some apparent fault, 
speaking swiftly and addressing a mind still recently in- 



TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE 163 

censed, were not harnessing for a more perilous adven- 
ture; as if yourself required less tact and eloquence; as 
if an angry friend or a suspicious 4over were not more 
easy to offend than a meeting of indifferent politicians! 
Nay, and the orator treads in a beaten round; the matters 
he discusses have been discussed a thousand times before; 
language is ready-shaped to his purpose; he speaks out of 
a cut and dry vocabulary. But you — may it not be that 
your defence reposes on some subtlety of feeling, not so 
much as touched upon in Shakespeare, to express which, 
like a pioneer, you must venture forth into zones of 
thought still unsurveyed, and become yourself a literary 
innovator ? For even in love there are unlovely humours ; 
ambiguous acts, unpardonable words, may yet have 
sprung from a kind sentiment. If the injured one could 
read your heart, you may be sure that he would under- 
stand and pardon; but, alas! the heart cannot be shown 
— it has to be demonstrated in words. Do you think it 
is a hard thing to write poetry? Why, that is to write 
poetry, and of a high, if not the highest, order. 

I should even more admire "the lifelong and heroic 
literary labours'^ of my fellow-men, patiently clearing 
up in words their loves and their contentions, and speak- 
ing their autobiography daily to their wives, were it not 
for a circumstance which lessens their diflBculty and my 
admiration by equal parts. For life, though largely, is 
not entirely carried on by literature. We are subject to 
physical passions and contortions; the voice breaks and 
changes, and speaks by unconscious and winning inflec- 
tions; we have legible countenances, like an open book; 
things that cannot be said look eloquently through the 
eyes; and the soul, not locked into the body as a dungeon, 
dwells ever on the threshold with appealing signals. 
Groans and tears, looks and gestures, a flush or a pale- 
ness, are often the most clear reporters of the heart, and 



164 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

speak more directly to the hearts of others. The mes- 
sage flies by these interpreters in the least space of time, 
and the misunderstanding is averted in the moment of 
its birth. To explain in words takes time and a just and 
patient hearing; and in the critical epochs of a close re- 
lation, patience and justice are not qualities on which we 
can rely. But the look or the gesture explains things in 
a breath; they tell their message without ambiguity; un- 
like speech, they cannot stumble, by the way, on a re- 
proach or an allusion that should steel your friend against 
the truth; and then they have a higher authority, for they 
are the direct expression of the heart, not yet transmitted 
through the unfaithful and sophisticating brain. Not 
long ago I wrote a letter to a friend which came near in- 
volving us in quarrel; but we met, and in personal talk I 
repeated the worst of what I had written, and added 
worse to that; and with the commentary of the body it 
seemed not unfriendly either to hear or say. Indeed, 
letters are in vain for the purposes of intimacy; an ab- 
sence is a dead break in the relation; yet two who know 
each other fully and are bent on perpetuity in love, may 
so preserve the attitude of their aflFections that they may 
meet on the same terms as they had parted. 

Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read the 
face; pitiful that of the deaf, who cannot follow the 
changes of the voice. And there are others also to be 
pitied; for there are some of an inert, uneloquent nature, 
who have been denied all the symbols of communication, 
who have neither a lively play of facial expression, nor 
speaking gestures, nor a responsive voice, nor yet the gift 
of frank, explanatory speech: people truly made of clay, 
people tied for life into a bag which no one can undo. 
They are poorer than the gypsy, for their heart can speak 
no language under heaven. Such people we must learn 
slowly by the tenor of their acts, or through yea and nay 



TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE 165 

communications; or we take them on trust on the strength 
of a general air, and now and again, when we see the 
spirit breaking through in a flash, correct or change our 
estimate. But these will be uphill intimacies, without 
charm or freedom, to the end; and freedom is the chief 
ingredient in confidence. Some minds, romantically dull, 
despise physical endowments. That is a doctrine for a 
misanthrope; to those who like their fellow-creatures it 
must always be meaningless; and, for my part, I can see 
few things more desirable, after the possession of such 
radical qualities as honour and humour and pathos, 
than to have a lively and not a stolid countenance; to 
have looks to correspond with every feeling; to be 
elegant and delightful in person, so that we shall please 
even in the intervals of active pleasing, and may never 
discredit speech with uncouth manners or become uncon- 
sciously our own burlesques. But of all unfortunates 
there is one creature (for I will not call him man) con- 
spicuous in misfortune. This is he who has forfeited 
his birthright of expression, who has cultivated artful 
intonations, who has taught his face tricks, like a pet 
monkey, and on every side perverted or cut oflF his means 
of communication with his fellow-men. The body is a 
house of many windows: there we all sit, showing our- 
selves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. 
But this fellow has filled his windows with opaque glass, 
elegantly coloured. His house may be admired for its 
design, the crowd may pause before the stained windows, 
but meanwhile the poor proprietor must lie languishing 
within, uncomforted, unchangeably alone. 

Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than 
to refrain from open lies. It is possible to avoid false- 
hood and yet not tell the truth. It is not enough to an- 
swer formal questions. To reach the truth by yea and 
nay communications implies a questioner with a share of 



166 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

inspiration, such as is often found in mutual love. Yea 
and 7iay mean nothing; the meaning must have been re- 
lated in the question. Many words are often necessary 
to convey a very simple statement; for in this sort of 
exercise we never hit the gold; the most that we can 
hope is by many arrows, more or less far off on differ- 
ent sides, to indicate, in the course of time, for what target 
we are aiming, and after an hour's talk, back and for- 
ward, to convey the purport of a single principle or a 
single thought. And yet while the curt, pithy speaker 
misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous^ bab- 
bler will often add three new offences in the process of 
excusing one. It is really a most delicate affair. The 
world was made before the English language, and seem- 
ingly upon a different design. Suppose we held our con- 
verse not in words, but in music, those who have a bad 
ear would find themselves cut off from all near commerce, 
and no better than foreigners in this big world. But we 
do not consider how many have "a bad ear'^ for words, 
nor how often the most eloquent find nothing to reply. I 
hate questioners and questions; there are so few that 
can be spoken to without a lie. "Do you forgive mef" 
Madam and sweetheart, so far as I have gone in life I 
have never yet been able to discover what forgiveness 
means. ^^Is it still the same between us?^' Why, how 
can it be? It is eternally different; and yet you are still 
the friend of my heart. "Do you understand me?'^ 
God knows; I should think it highly improbable. 

The cruellest lies are often told in silence. A man 
may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his 
teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or 
a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished 
because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that un- 
manly shame which withholds a man from daring to be- 
* Given to long prefatory remarks. 



TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE 167 

tray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, 
has but hung his head and held his tongue ? And, again, 
a lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed through 
a lie. Truth to facts is not always truth to sentiment; 
and part of the truth, as often happens in answer to a 
question, may be the foulest calumny. A fact may be 
an exception; but the feeling is the law, and it is that 
w^hich you must neither garble nor belie. The w^hole 
tenor of a conversation is a part of the meaning of each 
separate statement; the beginning and the end define 
and travesty the intermediate conversation. You never 
speak to God; you address a fellow-man, full of his ow^n 
tempers; and to tell truth, rightly understood, is not to 
state the true facts, but to convey a true impression; 
truth in spirit, not truth to letter, is the true veracity. 
To reconcile averted friends a Jesuitical discretion is 
often needful, not so much to gain a kind hearing as to 
communicate sober truth. Women have an ill name in 
this connection; yet they live in as true relations; the lie of 
a good woman is the true index of her heart. 

''It takes," says Thoreau, in the noblest and most use- 
ful passage I remember to have read in any modern 
author,^ '' two to speak truth — one to speak and another 
to hear." He must be very little experienced, or have 
no great zeal for truth, who does not recognise the fact. 
A grain of anger or a grain of suspicion produces strange 
acoustical effects, and makes the ear greedy to remark 
offence. Hence we find those who have once quarrelled 
carry themselves distantly, and are ever ready to break 
the truce. To speak truth there must be moral equality 
or else no respect; and hence between parent and child 
intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal fencing 
bout, and misapprehensions to become ingrained. And 

^ A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Wednesday, p. 
283. 



168 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

there is another side to this, for the parent begins with an 
imperfect notion of the child^s character, formed in early 
years or during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he 
adheres, noting only the facts which suit with his pre- 
conception; and wherever a person fancies himself un- 
justly judged, he at once and finally gives up the effort 
to speak truth. With our chosen friends, on the other 
hand, and still more between lovers (for mutual under- 
standing is love's essence), the truth is easily indicated 
by the one and aptly comprehended by the other. A 
hint taken, a look understood, conveys the gist of long 
and delicate explanations; and where the life is known 
even yea and nay become luminous. In the closest of all 
relations — that of a love well founded and equally shared 
— speech is half discarded, like a roundabout, infantile 
process or a ceremony of formal etiquette; and the two 
communicate directly by their presences, and with few 
looks and fewer words contrive to share their good and 
evil and uphold each other's hearts in joy. For love 
rests upon a physical basis; it is a familiarity of nature's 
making and apart from voluntary choice. Understand- 
ing has in some sort outrun knowledge, for the affection 
perhaps began with the acquaintance; and as it was not 
made like other relations, so it is not, like them, to be 
perturbed or clouded. Each knows more than can be 
uttered; each lives by faith, and believes by a natural 
compulsion; and between man and wife the language of 
the body is largely developed and grown strangely elo- 
quent. The thought that prompted and was conveyed in 
a caress would only lose to be set down in words — ay, 
although Shakespeare himself should be the scribe. 

Yet it is in these dear intimacies, beyond all others, 
that we must strive and do battle for the truth. Let but 
a doubt arise, and alas! all the previous intimacy and 
confidence is but another charge against the person 



TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE 169 

doubted. ^'Whqt a monstrous dishonesty is this if I 
have been deceived so long and so completely T' Let but 
that thought gain entrance, and you plead before a deaf 
tribunal. Appeal to the past; why, that is your crime! 
Make all clear, convince the reason; alas! speciousness is 
but a proof against you. " If you can abuse me now, the 
more likely that you have abused me from the first.'' 

For a strong aflFection such moments are worth sup- 
porting, and they will end wxll; for your advocate is in 
your lover^s heart, and speaks her own language; it is not 
you but she herself who can defend and clear you of the 
charge. But in slighter intimacies, and for a less strin- 
gent union? Indeed, is it worth while? We are all 
incompris,^ only more or less concerned for the mischance; 
all trying wrongly to do right; all fawning at each other's 
feet like dumb, neglected lap-dogs. Sometimes we catch 
an eye — this is our opportunity in the ages — and we wag 
our tail with a poor smile. " Is that all? " All ? If you 
only knew ! But how can they know ? They do not love 
us; the more fools we to squander life on the indiflFerent. 

But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, 
is excellent; for it is only by trying to understand others 
that we can get our own hearts understood; and in mat- 
ters of human feeling the clement judge is the most suc- 
cessful pleader. 

^ Not understood. 



TALK AND TALKERS* 

"Sir, we had a good talk." — Johnson. 

"As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle 
silence." — Franklin. 

There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; 
to be affable, gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a 
fact, a thought, or an illustration, pat to every subject; 
and not only to cheer the flight of time among our inti- 
mates, but bear our part in that great international con- 
gress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first de- 
clared, public errors first corrected, and the course of 
public opinion shaped, day by day, a little nearer to the 
right. No measure comes before Parliament but it has 
been long ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; 
no book is written that has not been largely composed by 
their assistance. Literature in many of its branches is no 
other than the shadow of good talk; but the imitation 
falls far short of the original in life, freedom and effect. 
There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, compar- 
ing experience and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, 
tentative, continually, ''in further search and progress;" 
while written words remain fixed, become idols even to 
the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and preserve flies 

^ Composed at Davos in the Alps during the winter of 1881-1882, 
and printed in The Cornhill Magazine the following April. The 
end of the essay describes with admirable skill the conversational 
abilities of Stevenson's various friends; but a full appreciation of 
these word-portraits requires so much familiarity with Stevenson's 
life that they have here been omitted. In August of the same year 
the Cornhill published Talk and Talkers. (A Sequel.) Both papers 
were reprinted in Memories and Portraits ^ 1887. 

170 



TALK AND TALKERS 171 

of obvious error in the amber of the truth. Last and 
chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can 
only deal with a fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy 
free and may call a spade a spade. Talk has none of the 
freezing immunities of the pulpit. It cannot, even if it 
would, become merely aesthetic or merely classical like 
literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug is dis- 
solved in laughter, and speech runs forth out of the con- 
temporary groove into the open fields of nature, cheery 
and cheering, like schoolboys out of school. And it is in 
talk alone that we can learn our period and ourselves. In 
short, the first duty of a man is to speak; that is his chief 
business in this world; and talk, w^hich is the harmonious 
speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of 
pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is all profit; 
it completes our education, founds and fosters our friend- 
ships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any 
state of health. 

The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are 
still a kind of contest; and if we would not forego all that 
is valuable in our lot, we must continually face some 
other person, eye to eye, and wrestle a fall whether in 
love or enmity. It is still by force of body, or power of 
character or intellect, that we attain to worthy pleasures. 
Men and women contend for each other in the lists of 
love, like rival mesmerists; the active and adroit decide 
their challenges in the sports of the body; and the sed- 
entary sit down to chess or conversation. All sluggish 
and pacific pleasures are, to the same degree, solitary 
and selfish; and every durable bond between human 
beings is foimded in or heightened by some element of 
competition. Now, the relation that has the least root 
in matter is undoubtedly that airy one of friendship; and 
hence, I suppose, it is that good talk most commonly 
arises among friends. Talk is, indeed, both the scene 



172 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and instrument of friendship. It is in talk alone that 
the friends can measure strength, and enjoy that ami- 
cable counter-assertion of personality which is the gauge 
of relations and the sport of life. 

A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours 
must first be accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; 
hour, company and circumstance be suited; and then, 
at a fit juncture, the subject, the quarry of two heated 
minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not that 
the talker has any of the hunter's pride, though he has all 
and more than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows 
the stream of conversation as an angler follows the wind- 
ings of a brook, not dallying where he fails to "kill.'* 
He trusts implicitly to hazard; and he is rewarded by con- 
tinual variety, continual pleasure, and those changing 
prospects of the truth that are the best of education. 
There is nothing in a subject, so called, that we should 
regard it as an idol, or follow it beyond the promptings of 
desire. Indeed, there are few subjects; and so far as they 
are truly talkable, more than the half of them may be re- 
duced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that 
there are other people dimly understood to be not quite 
the same as either. Wherever talk may range, it still runs 
half the time on these eternal lines. The theme being 
set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; asserts and 
justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances aad 
opinions, and brings them forth new-minted, to his own 
surprise and the admiration of his adversary. All nat- 
ural talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the laws of 
the game each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. 
It is from that reason that we venture to lay ourselves so 
open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we 
swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For 
talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits of 
their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their 



TALK AND TALKERS 173 

secret pretensions, and give themselves out for the 
heroes, brave, pious, musical and wise, that In their most 
shining moments they aspire to be. So they weave for 
themselves with words and for a while Inhabit a palace of 
delights, temple at once and theatre, where they fill the 
round of the world^s dignities, and feast with the gods, 
exulting In Kudos/ And when the talk is over, each 
goes his way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, 
still trailing clouds of glory; each declines from the height 
of his Ideal orgle, not in a moment, but by slow declension. 
I remember, in the entr'acte of an afternoon performance, 
coming forth Into the sunshine. In a beautiful green, gar- 
dened corner of a romantic city; and as I sat and smoked, 
the music moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there and 
evaporate The Flying Dutchman^ (for it was that I had 
been hearing) with a wonderful sense of life, warmth, well- 
being and pride; and the noises of the city, voices, bells 
and marching feet, fell together in my ears like a sympho- 
nious orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a 
good talk lives for a long while after in the blood, the 
heart still hot within you, the brain still simmering, and 
the physical earth swimming around you with the col- 
ours of the sunset. 

Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large 
surface of life, rather than dig mines into geological 
strata. Masses of experience, anecdote, incident, cross- 
lights, quotation, historical Instances, the whole flotsam 
and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter 
in hand from every point of the compass, and from every 
degree of mental elevation and abasement — these are the 
material with which talk is fortified, the food on which 
the talkers thrive. Such argument as is proper to the 
exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should 

^ The Greek word for glory, renown. 

2 Wagner's opera, Der Fliegende Hollander, 



174 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. 
It should keep close along the lines of humanity, near 
the bosoms and businesses of men, at the level where his- 
tory, fiction and experience intersect and illuminate each 
other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; but 
conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten 
when, instead of w^ords, the actual you and I sit cheek by 
jowl, the spirit housed in the live body, and the very 
clothes uttering voices to corroborate the story in the face. 
Not less surprising is the change when we leave off to 
speak of generalities — the bad, the good, the miser, and 
all the characters of Theophrastus^ — and call up other 
men, by anecdote or instance, in their very trick and 
feature; or trading on a common knowledge, toss each 
other famous names, still glowing with the hues of life. 
Communication is no longer by words, but by the instan- 
cing of whole biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, 
and epochs of history, in bulk. That w^hich is under- 
stood excels that which is spoken in quantity and quality 
alike; ideas thus figured and personified, change hands, 
as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without 
effort the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers 
who have a large common ground of reading will, for 
this reason, come the sooner to the grapple of genuine 
converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, Con- 
suelo and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steen- 
son,^ they can leave generalities and begin at once to 
speak by figures. 

Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most 
frequently and that embrace the widest range of facts. 
A few pleasures bear discussion for their own sake, but 

^ A Greek philosopher who died 288 B. C. His Ethical Characters 
delineates various moral types of humanity. 

2 Characters in various novels, Consuelo in George Sandys ConsuelOy 
Clarissa Harlowe in Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin in sev- 
eral novels of Balzac, and Steenie Steenson in Scott's Redgauntlet. 



TALK AND TALKERS 175 

only those which are most social or most radically hu- 
man; and even these can only be discussed among their 
devotees. A technicality is always welcome to the ex- 
pert, whether in athletics, art or law; I have heard the 
best kind of talk on technicalities from such rare and 
happy persons as both know and love their business. 
No human being ever spoke of scenery for above two 
minutes at a time, which makes me suspect we hear 
too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded 
as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. 
And yet the weather, the dramatic element in scenery, 
is far more tractable in language, and far more human 
both in import and suggestion than the stable features 
of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, and the peo- 
ple generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and 
it is often excitingly presented in literature. But the 
tendency of all living talk draws it back and back into 
the common focus of humanity. Talk is a creature of 
the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its 
last resort is still in a discussion on morals. That is the 
heroic form of gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pre- 
tensions; but still gossip, because it turns on personali- 
ties. You can keep no men long, nor Scotchmen at all, 
off moral or theological discussion. These are to all the 
world what law is to lawyers; they are everybody's 
technicalities; the medium through which all consider 
life, and the dialect in which they express their judgments. 
I knew three young men who walked together daily for 
some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest and in 
cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with un- 
abated zest, and yet scarce wandered that whole time be- 
yond two subjects — theology and love. And perhaps 
neither a court of love nor an assembly of divines would 
have granted their premises or welcomed their conclu- 
sions. 



176 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any 
more than by private thinking. That is not the profit. 
The profit is in the exercise, and above all in the expe- 
rience; for when we reason at large on any subject, 
we review our state and history in life. From time to 
time, however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk 
becomes eflPective, conquering like war, widening the 
boundaries of knowledge like an exploration. A point 
arises; the question takes a problematical, a baffling, 
yet a likely air; the talkers begin to feel lively presenti- 
ments of some conclusion near at hand; towards this 
they strive with emulous ardour, each by his own path, 
and struggling for first utterance; and then one leaps 
upon the summit of that matter w^ith a shout, and almost 
at the same moment the other is beside him; and behold 
they are agreed. Like enough, the progress is illusory, 
a mere cat's cradle having been wound and unwound 
out of words. But the sense of joint discovery is none 
the less giddy and inspiriting. And in the life of the 
talker such triumphs, though imaginary, are neither few 
nor far apart; they are attained with speed and pleasure, 
in the hour of mirth; and by the nature of the process, 
they are always worthily shared. 

There is a certain attitude, combative at once and 
deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, 
which marks out at once the talkable man. It is not 
eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain 
proportion of all of these that I love to encounter in my 
amicable adversaries. They must not be pontiffs hold- 
ing doctrine, but huntsmen questing after elements of 
truth. Neither must they be boys to be instructed, but 
fellow-teachers with whom I may wrangle and agree 
on equal terms. We must reach some solution, some 
shadow of consent; for without that, eager talk becomes 
a torture. But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or 



TALK AND TALKERS 177 

quickly, or without the tussle and eflFort wherein pleasure 
lies. . , . 

One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine 
conversation that the sayings can scarce be quoted with 
their full effect beyond the circle of common friends. 
To have their proper weight they should appear in a 
biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good 
talk is dramatic; it is like an impromptu piece of acting 
where each should represent himself to the greatest ad- 
vantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each 
speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, 
if you were to shift the speeches round from one to an- 
other, there would be the greatest loss in significance 
and perspicuity. It is for this reason that talk depends 
so wholly on our company. We should like to intro- 
duce Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but 
Falstaff in talk with Cordelia seems even painful.^ Most 
of us, by the Protean^ quality of man, can talk to some 
degree with all; but the true talk, that strikes out all the 
slumbering best of us, comes only with the peculiar 
brethren of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in the 
constitution of our being, and is a thing to relish with 
all our energy, while yet we have it, and to be grateful 
for for ever. 

^ Falstaff in Henry IV, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet^ Sir Toby 
Belch in Twelfth Night are comic or witty figures; but Cordelia, in 
Lear, is tragic. 

2 In Greek mythology Proteus was a sea-god especially noted for 
his power of changing rapidly from one form to another. 



BEGGARS ' 



In a pleasant, airy, up-hill country, it was my fortune 
when I was young to make the acquaintance of a certain 
beggar. I call him beggar, though he usually allowed 
his coat and his shoes (which were open-mouthed, indeed) 
to beg for him. He was the wreck of an athletic man, tall, 
gaunt, and bronzed; far gone in consumption, with that 
disquieting smile of the mortally stricken on his face; 
but still active afoot, still with the brisk military carriage, 
the ready military salute. Three ways led through this 
piece of country; and as I was inconstant in my choice, I 
believe he must often have awaited me in vain. But 
often enough, he caught me; often enough, from some 
place of ambush by the roadside, he would spring sud- 
denly forth in the regulation attitude, and launching at 
once into his inconsequential talk, fall into step with me 
upon my farther course. "A fine morning, sir, though 
perhaps a trifle inclining to rain. I hope I see you well, 
sir. Why, no, sir, I don't feel as hearty myself as I could 
wish, but I am keeping about my ordinary. I am pleased 
to meet you on the road, sir. I assure you I quite look 

* Written in the latter part of 1887 while Stevenson was preparing 
for his winter at Saranac. This was one of twelve articles which 
the author, by agreement, contributed to Scribner^s Magazine dur- 
ing the year 1888, Beggars appearing in the March number. The 
essay contains five sections, only the first two of which are here 
given. These two are, in Stevenson's opinion, better than the re- 
mainder, and are included by him more than once in the list of his 
own best works. Beggars was republished in the volume, Across the 
Plains, 1892. 

178 



BEGGARS 179 

forward to one of our little conversations/' He loved 
the sound of his own voice inordinately, and though 
(with something too off-hand to call servility) he would 
always hasten to agree with anything you said, yet he 
could never suffer you to say it to an end. By what tran- 
sition he slid to his favourite subject I have no mem- 
ory; but we had never been long together on the way be- 
fore he was dealing, in a very military manner, with the 
English poets. "Shelley was a fine poet, sir, though a 
trifle atheistical in his opinions. His Queen Mab, sir, is 
quite an atheistical work. Scott, sir, is not so poetical a 
writer. With the works of Shakespeare I am not so 
well acquainted, but he was a fine poet. Keats — John 
Keats, sir — he was a very fine poet.'' With such ref- 
erences, such trivial criticism, such loving parade of his 
own knowledge, he would beguile the road, striding for- 
ward up-hill, his staff now clapped to the ribs of his 
deep, resonant chest, now swinging in the air with the 
remembered jauntiness of the private soldier; and all 
the while his toes looking out of his boots, and his shirt 
looking out of. his elbows, and death looking out of 
his smile, and his big, crazy frame shaken by accesses of 
cough. 

He would often go the whole w^ay home with me: 
often to borrow a book, and that book always a poet. 
Off he would march, to continue his mendicant rounds, 
with the volume slipped into the pocket of his ragged 
coat; and although he would sometimes keep it quite a 
while, yet it came always back agaia at last, not much the 
worse for its travels into beggardom. And in this way, 
doubtless, his knowledge grew and his glib, random 
criticism took a wider range. But my library was not 
the first he had drawn upon: at our first encounter, he 
was already brimful of Shelley and the atheistical Queen 
Mab, and "Keats — John Keats, sir.'' And I have often 



180 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

wondered how he came by these acquirements; just as I 
often wondered how he fell to be a beggar. He had 
served through the Mutiny^ — of which (like so many peo- 
ple) he could tell practically nothing beyond the names 
of places, and that it was " diflScult work, sir,^^ and very 
hot, or that so-and-so was " a very fine commander, sir." 
He was far too smart a man to have remained a private; 
in the nature of things, he must have won his stripes. 
And yet here he was without a pension. When I touched 
on this problem, he would content himself with diffidently 
offering me advice. " A man should be very careful when 
he is young, sir. If you ^11 excuse me saying so, a spirited 
young gentleman like yourself, sir, should be very careful. 
I was perhaps a trifle inclined to atheistical opinions 
myself." For (perhaps with a deeper wisdom than we 
are inclined in these days to admit) he plainly bracketed 
agnosticism with beer and skittles. 

Keats — John Keats, sir — and Shelley were his favour- 
ite bards. I cannot remember if I tried him with Ros- 
setti; but I know his taste to a hair, and if ever I did, he 
must have doted on that author. What took him was 
a richness in the speech; he loved the exotic, the unex- 
pected word; the moving cadence of a phrase; a vague 
sense of emotion (about nothing) in the very letters of the 
alphabet: the romance of language. His honest head 
was very nearly empty, his intellect like a child's; and 
when he read his favourite authors, he can almost never 
have understood what he was reading. Yet the taste 
was not only genuine, it was exclusive; I tried in vain to 
offer him novels; he would none of them; he cared for 
nothing but romantic language that he could not under- 
stand. The case may be commoner than we suppose. I 
am reminded of a lad who was laid in the next cot to 

* The great uprising of the Hindoos against their English rulers, 
1857-1859. 



BEGGARS 181 

a friend of mine in a public hospital, and who was no 
sooner installed than he sent out (perhaps with his last 
pence) for a cheap Shakespeare. My friend pricked up 
his ears; fell at once in talk with his new neighbour, and 
was ready, when the book arrived, to make a singular dis- 
covery. For this lover of great literature understood not 
one sentence out of twelve, and his favourite part was 
that of which he understood the least — the inimitable, 
mouth-filling rodomontade of the ghost in Hamlet. It 
was a bright day in hospital when my friend expounded 
the sense of this beloved jargon: a task for which I am 
willing to believe my friend was very fit, though I can 
never regard it as an easy one. I know indeed a point or 
two, on which I would gladly question Mr. Shakespeare, 
that lover of big words, could he revisit the glimpses of the 
moon, or could I myself climb backward to the spacious 
days of Elizabeth. But in the second case, I should most 
likely pretermit these questionings, and take my place 
instead in the pit at the Blackfriars,^ to hear the actor in 
his favourite part, playing up to Mr. Burbage,^ and rolling 
out — as I seem to hear him — with a ponderous gusto — 

"UnhouseFd, disappointed, unanerd." 

What a pleasant chance, if we could go there in a party! 
and what a surprise for Mr, Burbage, when the ghost 
received the honours of the evening! 

As for my old soldier, like Mr. Burbage and Mr. 
Shakespeare, he is long since dead; and now lies buried, 
I suppose, and nameless and quite forgotten, in some 
poor city graveyard. — But not for me, you brave heart, 
have you been buried! For me, you are still afoot, tast- 
ing the sun and air, and striding southward. By the 

^ One of the theatres with which Shakespeare was connected. 
^ 2 Richard Burbage, the foremost tragic actor of Shakespeare's 
time. 



182 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

groves of Comlston and beside the Hermitage of Braid, 
by the Hunters^ Tryst, and where the curlews and 
plovers cry around Fairmilehead, I see and hear you, 
stalwartly carrying your deadly sickness, cheerfully 
discoursing of uncomprehended poets. 

II 

The thought of the old soldier recalls that of another 
tramp, his counterpart. This was a little, lean, and fiery 
man, with the eyes of a dog and the face of a gipsy; w^hom 
I found one morning encamped with his wife and children 
and his grinder's wheel, beside the burn of Kinnaird. 
To this beloved dell I went, at that time, daily; and daily 
the knife-grinder and I (for as long as his tent continued 
pleasantly to interrupt my little wilderness) sat on two 
stones, and smoked, and plucked grass, and talked to the 
tune of the brown water. His children were mere whelps, 
they fought and bit among the fern like vermin. His 
wife was a mere squaw; I saw her gather brush and tend 
the kettle, but she never ventured to address her lord while 
I was present. The tent was a mere gipsy hovel, like a 
sty for pigs. But the grinder himself had the fine self- 
sufficiency and grave politeness of the hunter and the 
savage; he did me the honours of this dell, which had 
been mine but the day before, took me far into the secrets 
of his life, and used me (I am proud to remember) as a 
friend. 

Like my old soldier, he w^as far gone in the national 
complaint. Unlike him, he had a vulgar taste in letters; 
scarce flying higher than the story papers; probably 
finding no difference, certainly seeking none, between 
Tannahill and Burns ;^ his noblest thoughts, whether of 

^Robert Tannahill (1774-1810), a minor Scotch poet. Robert 
Burns (1759-1796), the greatest lyric poet of Scotland. 



BEGGARS 183 

poetry or music, adequately embodied in that somewhat 
obvious ditty, 

''Will ye gang, lassie, gang 
To the braes o' Balquidder:" 

— which is indeed apt to echo in the ears of Scottish 
children, and to him, in view of his experience, must have 
found a special directness of address. But if he had no 
fine sense of poetry in letters, he felt with a deep joy the 
poetry of life. You should have heard him speak of w^hat 
he loved; of the tent pitched beside the talking water; 
of the stars overhead at night; of the blest return of morn- 
ing, the peep of day over the moors, the awaking birds 
among the birches; how he abhorred the long winter shut 
in cities; and with what delight, at the return of the 
spring, he once more pitched his camp in the living out- 
of-doors. But we were a pair of tramps; and to you, who 
are doubtless sedentary and a consistent first-class pas- 
senger in life, he would scarce have laid himself so open; — 
to you, he might have been content to tell his story of a 
ghost — that of a buccaneer with his pistols as he lived — 
whom he had once encountered in a seaside cave near 
Buckie; and that would have been enough, for that would 
have shown you the mettle of the man. Here was a piece 
of experience solidly and livingly built up in words, 
here was a story created, teres atque rotundus} 

And to think of the old soldier, that lover of the lit- 
erary bards! He had visited stranger spots than any 
seaside cave; encountered men more terrible than any 
spirit; done and dared and suffered in that incredible, 
unsung epic of the Mutiny War; played his part with the 
field force of Delhi, beleaguering and beleaguered; shared 
in that enduring, savage anger and contempt of death 
and decency that, for long months together, bedeviFd and 
^ Smooth-polished and rounded, a quotation from Horace. 



184 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

inspired the army; was hurled to and fro in the battle- 
smoke of the assault; was there, perhaps, where Nichol- 
son^ fell; was there when the attacking column, with hell 
upon every side, found the soldier^s enemy — strong drink, 
and the lives of tens of thousands trembled in the scale, 
and the fate of the flag of England staggered. And of all 
this he had no more to say than " hot work, sir,^' or " the 
army suffered a great deal, sir,^' or ^'I believe General 
Wilson, sir, was not very highly thought of in the papers/^ 
His life was naught to him, the vivid pages of experi- 
ence quite blank: in words his pleasure lay — melodious, 
agitated words — printed words, about that which he had 
never seen and was connatally incapable of comprehend- 
ing. We have here two temperaments face to face; both 
untrained, unsophisticated, surprised (we may say) in the 
egg; both boldly charactered: — that of the artist, the 
lover and artificer of words; that of the maker, the seeer, 
the lover and forger of experience. If the one had a 
daughter and the other had a son, and these married, 
might not some illustrious writer count descent from the 
beggar-soldier and the needy knife-grinder? 

* John Nicholson, a British general, died of his wounds received 
at Delhi, September, 1857. 



PULVIS ET UMBRA ^ 

We look for some reward of our endeavours and are 
disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace 
of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. 
Our frailties are invincible, are virtues barren; the battle 
goes sore against us to the going down of the sun. The 
canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we look 
abroad, even on the face of our small earth, and find them 
change with every climate, and no country where some 
action is not honoured for a virtue and none where it is 
not branded for a vice; and we look in our experience, 
and find no vital congruity in the wisest rules, but at the 
best a municipal fitness. It is not strange if we are 
tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. Our 
religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, 
till they are all emasculate and sentimentalised, and only 
please and weaken. Truth is of a rougher strain. In 
the harsh face of life, faith can read a bracing gospel. 
The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten 

^ This, like Beggars, was one of the twelve articles contributed to 
Scribner's Magazine during 1888; and with Beggars it was included 
in Across the Plains , 1892. " I think there is some fine writing in 
it," wrote Stevenson to Colvin, "some very apt and pregnant 
phrases. Pulvis et Umbra, I call it; I might have called it a Dar- 
winian Sermon.'' To Miss Adelaide Boodle he says, "I wrote it 
with great feeling and conviction; to me it seemed bracing and health- 
ful. . . . But I find that to some people this vision of mine is a 
nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith in God or pleasure 
in man. ... If my view be everything but the nonsense that it 
may be — to me it seems self-evident and blinding truth — surely of 
all things it makes this world holier." The title is from Horace, 
Pulvis et umbra sumus, "we are dust and shadow," or "dust and 
ashes." 

185 



186 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the 
Kosmos/ in whose joints we are but moss and fungus, 
more ancient still. 



Of the Kosmos in the last resort, science reports many 
doubtful things and all of them appalling. There seems 
no substance to this solid globe on which we stamp: 
nothing but symbols and ratios. Symbols and ratios 
carry us and bring us forth and beat us down; gravity 
that swings the incommensurable suns and worlds 
through space, is but a figment varying inversely as the 
squares of distances; and the suns and w^orlds them- 
selves, imponderable figures of abstraction, NH3 and 
H20.^ Consideration dares not dwell upon this view; 
that way madness lies; science carries us into zones of 
speculation, where there is no habitable city for the 
mind of man. 

But take the Kosmos with a grosser faith, as our 
senses give it us. We behold space sown with rota- 
tory islands, suns and worlds and the shards and WTCcks 
of systems: some, like the sun, still blazing; some rotting, 
like the earth; others, like the moon, stable in desolation. 
All of these we take to be made of something we call mat- 
ter: a thing which no analysis can help us to conceive; 
to whose incredible properties no familiarity can recon- 
cile our minds. This stuff, when not purified by the 
lustration of fire, rots uncleanly into something we call 
life; seized through all its atoms with a pediculous' 
malady; swelling in tumours that become independent, 
sometimes even (by an abhorrent prodigy) locomotory; 
one splitting into millions, millions cohering into one, 

^The orderly system of the universe. 

2 Chemical formulas for ammonia and water respectively. 

* Infested with lice. 



PULVIS ET UMBRA 187 

as the malady proceeds through varying stages. This 
vital putrescence of the dust, used as we are to it, yet 
strikes us with occasional disgust, and the profusion of 
worms in a piece of ancient turf, or the air of a marsh 
darkened with insects, will sometimes check our breath- 
ing so that we aspire for cleaner places. But none is 
clean: the moving sand is infected with lice; the pure 
spring, where it bursts out of the mountain, is a mere 
issue of worms; even in the hard rock the crystal is 
forming. 

In two main shapes this eruption covers the counte- 
nance of the earth: the animal and the vegetable: one 
in some degree the inversion of the other: the second 
rooted to the spot; the jBrst coming detached out of its 
natal mud, and scurrying abroad with the myriad feet of 
insects or towering into the heavens on the wings of birds: 
a thing so inconceivable that, if it be well considered, 
the heart stops. To what passes with the anchored ver- 
min, we have little clue: doubtless they have their joys 
and sorrows, their delights and killing agonies: it ap- 
pears not how. But of the locomotory, to which we our- 
selves belong, we can tell more. These share with us a 
thousand miracles: the miracles of sight, of hearing, of 
the projection of sound, things that bridge space; the 
miracles of memory and reason, by which the present is 
conceived, and when it is gone, its image kept living in 
the brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, 
with its imperious desires and staggering consequences. 
And to put the last touch upon this mountain mass of the 
revolting and the inconceivable, all these prey upon each 
other, lives tearing other lives in pieces, cramming them 
inside themselves, and by that summary process, growing 
fat: the vegetarian, the whale, perhaps the tree, not less 
than the lion of the desert; for the vegetarian is only the 
eater of the dumb. 



188 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Meanwhile our rotatory island loaded with predatory 
life, and more drenched with blood, both animal and 
vegetable, than ever mutinied ship, scuds through space 
with unimaginable speed, and turns alternate cheeks to 
the reverberation of a blazing world, ninety million miles 
away. 

What a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease 
of the agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying 
drugged with slumber; killing, feeding, growing, bring- 
ing forth small copies of himself; grown upon with hair 
like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his 
face; a thing to set children screaming; — and yet looked 
at nearlier, known as his fellows know him, how surpris- 
ing are his attributes! Poor soul, here for so little, cast 
among so many hardships, filled with desires so incom- 
mensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, sav- 
agely descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon 
his fellow lives : who should have blamed him had he 
been of a piece with his destiny and a being merely bar- 
barous? And we look and behold him instead filled 
with imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admi- 
rably valiant, often touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst 
his momentary life, to debate of right and wrong and the 
attributes of the deity; rising up to do battle for an egg 
or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate 
with cordial affection; bringing forth in pain, rearing with 
long-suffering solicitude, his young. To touch the heart 
of his mystery, we find in him one thought, strange to the 
point of lunacy: the thought of duty; the thought of 
something owing to himself, to his neighbour, to his God: 
an ideal of decency, to which he would rise if it were pos- 
sible; a limit of shame, below which, if it be possible, he 



PULVIS ET UMBRA 189 

will not stoop. The design in most men is one of con- 
formity; here and there, in picked natures, it transcends 
itself and soars on the other side, arming martyrs with 
independence; but in all, in their degrees, it is a bosom 
thought: — Not in man alone, for we trace it in dogs and 
cats whom we know fairly well, and doubtless some simi- 
lar point of honour sways the elephant, the oyster, and 
the louse, of whom we know so little: — But in man, at 
least, it sways with so complete an empire that merely 
selfish things come second, even with the selfish: that ap- 
petites are starved, fears are conquered, pains supported; 
that almost the dullest shrinks from the reproof of a 
glance, although it were a child's; and all but the most 
cowardly stand amid the risks of war; and the more 
noble, having strongly conceived an act as due to their 
ideal, affront and embrace death. Strange enough if, 
with their singular origin and perverted practice, they 
think they are to be rewarded in some future life: 
stranger still, if they are persuaded of the contrary, and 
think this blow, which they solicit, will strike them 
senseless for eternity. I shall be reminded what a 
tragedy of misconception and misconduct man at large 
presents: of organised injustice, cowardly violence and 
treacherous crime; and of the damning imperfections of 
the best. They cannot be too darkly drawn. Man is 
indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. But 
where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more 
remarkable that all should continue to strive; and surely 
we should find it both touching and inspiriting, that in a 
field from which success is banished, our race should not 
cease to labour. 

If the first view of this creature, stalking in his rota- 
tory isle, be a thing to shake the courage of the stoutest, 
on this nearer sight, he startles us with an admiring won- 
der. It matters not where we look, under what climate 



190 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

we observe him, in what stage of society, in what depth 
of ignorance, burthened with what erroneous morahty; 
by camp-fires in Assiniboia,^ the snow powdering his 
shoulders, the wind plucking his blanket, as he sits, pass- 
ing the ceremonial calumet ^ and uttering his grave 
opinions like a Roman senator; in ships at sea, a man 
inured to hardship and vile pleasures, his brightest hope 
a fiddle in a tavern and a bedizened trull who sells herself 
to rob him, and he for all that simple, innocent, cheerful, 
kindly like a child, constant to toil, brave to drown, for 
others; in the slums of cities, moving among indifferent 
millions to mechanical employments, without hope of 
change in the future, with scarce a pleasure in the present, 
and yet true to his virtues, honest up to his lights, kind to 
his neighbours, tempted perhaps in vain by the bright 
gin-palace, perhaps long-suffering with the drunken wife 
that ruins him; in India (a woman this time) kneeling 
with broken cries and streaming tears, as she drowns her 
child in the sacred river; in the brothel, the discard of 
society, living mainly on strong drink, fed with affronts, 
a fool, a thief, the comrade of thieves, and even here keep- 
ing the point of honour and the touch of pity, often repay- 
ing the world's scorn with service, often standing firm 
upon a scruple, and at a certain cost, rejecting riches: — 
everywhere some virtue cherished or affected, every- 
where some decency of thought and carriage, everywhere 
the ensign of man's ineffectual goodness: — ah! if I could 
show you this! if I could show you these men and 
women, all the world over, in every stage of history, under 
every abuse of error, under every circumstance of fail- 
ure, without hope, without help, without thanks, still ob- 
scurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still clinging, in 
the brothel or on the scaffold, to some rag of honour, the 

^ A district in central Canada. 
2 The Indian pipe of peace. 



PULVIS ET UMBRA 191 

poor jewel of their souls ! They may seek to escape, and 
yet they cannot; it is not alone their privilege and glory, 
but their doom; they are condemned to some nobility; 
all their lives long, the desire of good is at their heels, the 
implacable hunter. 

Of all earth's meteors, here at least is the most strange 
and consoling: that this ennobled lemur,^ this hair- 
crowned bubble of the dust, this inheritor of a few years 
and sorrow^s, should yet deny himself his rare delights, and 
add to his frequent pains, and live for an ideal, however 
misconceived. Nor can we stop with man. A new doc- 
trine,^ received with screams a little while ago by cant- 
ing moralists, and still not properly worked into the 
body of our thoughts, lights us a step farther into the 
heart of this rough but noble universe. For nowadays 
the pride of man denies in vain his kinship with the 
original dust. He stands no longer like a thing apart. 
Close at his heels we see the dog, prince of another genus: 
and in him too, we see dumbly testified the same cultus 
of an unattainable ideal, the same constancy in failure. 
Does it stop with the dog? We look at our feet where 
the ground is blackened with the swarming ant: a creature 
so small, so far from us in the hierarchy of brutes, that 
we can scarce trace and scarce comprehend his doings; 
and here also, in his ordered polities and rigorous jus- 
tice, we see confessed the law of duty and the fact of in- 
dividual sin. Does it stop, then, with the ant? Rather 
this desire of w^ell-doing and this doom of frailty run 
through all the grades of life: rather is this earth, from the 
frosty top of Everest to the next margin of the inter- 
nal fire, one stage of ineffectual virtues and one temple 
of pious tears and perseverance. The whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth together. It is the common and 

^ A small animal allied to the monkey. 
2 The theory of evolution. 



192 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the god-like law of life. The browsers, the biters, the 
barkers, the hairy coats of field and forest, the squirrel 
in the dak, the thousand-footed creeper in the dust, as 
they share with us the gift of life, share with us the love 
of an ideal: strive like us — like us are tempted to grow 
weary of the struggle — to do well; like us receive at times 
unmerited refreshment, visitings of support, returns of 
courage; and are condemned like us to be crucified be- 
tween that double law of the members and the will. Are 
they like us, I wonder, in the timid hope of some reward, 
some sugar with the drug ? do they, too, stand aghast at 
unrewarded virtues, at the sufferings of those whom, in 
our partiality, we take to be just, and the prosperity of 
such as, in our blindness, we call wicked? It may be, 
and yet God knows what they should look for. Even 
while they look, even while they repent, the foot of man 
treads them by thousands in the dust, the yelping hounds 
burst upon their trail, the bullet speeds, the knives are 
heating in the den of the vivisectionist; or the dew falls, 
and the generation of a day is blotted out. For these are 
creatures, compared with whom our weakness is strength, 
our ignorance wisdom, our brief span eternity. 

And as we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror 
and under the imminent hand of death, God forbid it 
should be man the erected, the reasoner, the wise in his 
own eyes — God forbid it should be man that wearies in 
well-doing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters 
the language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, 
that the whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives 
with inconquerable constancy: Surely not all in vain. 



FATHER DAMIEN 



FATHER DAMIEN^ 

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DR. 
HYDE OF HONOLULU 

Sydney, February 25, 1890. 
Sir, — It may probably occur to you that we have met, 
and visited, and conversed; on my side, with interest. 
You may remember that you have done me several 
courtesies, for which I was prepared to be grateful. But 
there are duties which come before gratitude, and of- 
fences which justly divide friends, far more acquaint-- 
ances. Your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage is a 
document which, in my sight, if you had filled me with 
bread when I was starving, if you had sat up to nurse my 
father when he lay a-dying, would yet absolve me from 
the bonds of gratitude. You know enough, doubtless, 
of the process of canonisation to be aware that, a hundred 
years after the death of Damien, there will appear a man 

* Father Damien died April 15, 1889. Stevenson visited Molokai, 
the island of the lepers, in May of the same year. While he was in 
Sydney, Australia, in February of 1890, he read Dr. Hyde's letter 
and heard at the same time a report that a proposed memorial to 
Damien in London had been abandoned on account of it, or of 
charges similar to those which it contained. The fiery invective 
printed above was the result. It was first published on March 
27th of this year in pamphlet form at Sydney; afterwards reprinted 
in The Scots Observer at Edinburgh, and in the collected works. 
Stevenson's letters describing his visit to Molokai (printed on pp. 
30-36 of these selections) should be read in connection with Father 
Damien. In justice to Dr. Hyde, it should be noted that he was 
possessed of an independent fortune, and so did not grow rich in 
the course of his '^ evangelical caUing"; furthermore, that his letter 
to the Rev. H. B. Gage seems not to have been intended for publi- 
cation. 

195 



196 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

charged with the painful ofBce of the devil's advocate. 
After that noble brother of mine, and of all frail clay, shall 
have lain a century at rest, one shall accuse, one defend 
him. The circumstance is unusual that the devil's advo- 
cate should be a volunteer, should be a member of a sect 
immediately rival, and should make haste to take upon 
himself his ugly office ere the bones are cold; unusual, and 
of a taste which I shall leave my readers free to qualify; 
unusual, and to me inspiring. If I have at all learned the 
trade of using words to convey truth and to arouse emo- 
tion, you have at last furnished me with a subject. For 
it is in the interest of all mankind and the cause of pub- 
lic decency in every quarter of the world, not only that 
Damien should be righted, but that you and your letter 
should be displayed at length, in their true colours, to 
the public eye. 

To do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at 
large: I shall then proceed to criticise your utterance 
from several points of view, divine and human, in the 
course of which I shall attempt to draw again and with 
more specification the character of the dead saint whom 
it has pleased you to vilify: so much being done, I shall 
say farewell to you forever. 

"Honolulu, August 2, 1889. 
"Rev. H. B. Gage. 

"Dear Brother, — In answer to your inquiries about 
Father Damien, I can only reply that we who knew the 
man are surprised at the extravagant newspaper lauda- 
tions, as if he was a most saintly philanthropist. The 
simple truth is, he was a coarse, dirty man, headstrong 
and bigoted. He was not sent to Molokai, but went there 
without orders; did not stay at the leper settlement (be- 
fore he became one himself), but circulated freely over 
the whole island (less than half the island is devoted to 



FATHER DAMIEN 197 

the lepers), and. he came often to Honolulu. He had 
no hand in the reforms and improvements inaugurated, 
which were the work of our Board of Health, as occasion 
required and means were provided. He was not a pure 
man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of which 
he died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness. 
Others have done much for the lepers, our own ministers, 
the government physicians, and so forth, but never with 
the Catholic idea of meriting eternal life. — Yours, etc., 

"CM. Hyde."^ 

To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must 
draw at the outset on my private knowledge of the signa- 
tory and his sect. It may offend others; scarcely you, 
who have been so busy to collect, so bold to publish, gos- 
sip on your rivals. And this is perhaps the moment when 
I may best explain to you the character of what you are to 
read: I conceive you as a man quite beyond and below 
the reticences of civility: with what measure you mete, 
with that shall it be measured you again; with you, at last, 
I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to plunge home. 
And if in aught that I shall say I should offend others, 
your colleagues, whom I respect and remember with 
affection, I can but offer them my regret; I am not free, 
I am inspired by the consideration of interests far more 
large; and such pain as can be inflicted by anything from 
me must be indeed trifling when compared with the pain 
with which they read your letter. It is not the hangman, 
but the criminal, that brings dishonour on the house. 

You belong, sir, to a sect — I believe my sect, and that 
in which my ancestors laboured — which has enjoyed, and 
partly failed to utilise, an exceptional advantage in the 
islands of Hawaii. The first missionaries came; they 
found the land already self-purged of its old and bloody 
* From the Sydney Presbyterian ^ October 26, 1889. 



198 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

faith; they were embraced, almost on their arrival, with 
enthusiasm; what troubles they supported came far more 
from whites than from Hawaiians; and to these last they 
stood (in a rough figure) in the shoes of God. This is 
not the place to enter into the degree or causes of their 
failure, such as it is. One element alone is pertinent, 
and must here be plainly dealt with. In the course of 
their evangelical calling, they — or too many of them — 
grew rich. It may be news to you that the houses of 
missionaries are a cause of mocking on the streets of 
Honolulu. It will at least be news to you, that when I 
returned your civil visit, the driver of my cab commented 
on the size, the taste, and the comfort of your home. It 
would have been news certainly to myself, had any one 
told me that afternoon that I should live to drag such 
matter into print. But you see, sir, how you degrade 
better men to your own level; and it is needful that those 
who are to judge betwixt you and me, betwixt Damien 
and the devil's advocate, should understand your letter 
to have been penned in a house which could raise, and 
that very justly, the envy and the comments of the passers- 
by. I think (to employ a phrase of yours which I admire) 
it "should be attributed '^ to you that you have never 
visited the scene of Damien's life and death. If you 
had, and had recalled it, and looked about your pleasant 
rooms, even your pen perhaps would have been stayed. 

Your sect (and remember, as far as any sect avows 
me, it is mine) has not done ill in a worldly sense in the 
Hawaiian Kingdom. When calamity befell their inno- 
cent parishioners, when leprosy descended and took root 
in the Eight Islands, a quid pro quo was to be looked for. 
To that prosperous mission, and to you, as one of its 
adornments, God had sent at last an opportunity. I 
know I am touching here upon a nerve acutely sensitive. 
I know that others of your colleagues look back on the 



FATHER DAMIEN 199 

inertia of your Church, and the intrusive and decisive 
heroism of Daifiien, with something almost to be called 
remorse. I am sure it is so with yourself; I am per- 
suaded your letter was inspired by a certain envy, not 
essentially ignoble, and the one human trait to be espied 
in that performance. You were thinking of the lost 
,chance, the past day; of that which should have been 
conceived and was not; of the service due and not 
rendered. Time was, said the voice in your ear, in your 
pleasant room, as you sat raging and writing; and if the 
words written were base beyond parallel, the rage, I am 
happy to repeat — it is the only compliment I shall pay 
you — the rage was almost virtuous. But, sir, when we 
have failed, and another has succeeded; when we have 
stood by, and another has stepped in; when we sit and 
grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a plain, un- 
couth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of 
God, and succours the afflicted, and consoles the dying, 
and is himself afflicted in his turn, and dies upon the field 
of honour — the battle cannot be retrieved as your un- 
happy irritation has suggested. It is a lost battle, and 
lost forever. One thing remained to you in your defeat 
— some rags of common honour; and these you have 
made haste to cast away. 

Common honour; not the honour of having done any- 
thing right, but the honour of not having done aught 
conspicuously foul; the honour of the inert: that was what 
remained to you. We are not all expected to be Damiens ; 
a man may conceive his duty more narrowly, he may 
love his comforts better; and none will cast a stone at him 
for that. But will a gentleman of your reverend pro- 
fession allow me an example from the fields of gallantry ? 
When two gentlemen compete for the favour of a lady, 
and the one succeeds and the other is rejected, and (as 
will sometimes happen) matter damaging to the success- 



200 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ful rivars credit reaches the ear of the defeated, it is held 
by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth is, in the 
circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church 
and Damien's were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: 
to help, to edify, to set divine examples. You having 
(in one huge instance) failed, and Damien succeeded, I 
marvel it should not have occurred to you that you were 
doomed to silence; that when you had been outstripped 
in that high rivalry, and sat inglorious in the midst of 
your well-being, in your pleasant room — and Damien, 
crowned with glories and horrors, toiled and rotted in that 
pigstye of his under the cliffs of Kalawao — you, the elect 
who would not, were the last man on earth to collect and 
propagate gossip on the volunteer who would and did. 

I think I see you — for I try to see you in the flesh as 
I write these sentences — I think I see you leap at the word 
pigstye, a hyperbolical expression at the best. " He had 
no hand in the reforms,^' he was "a coarse, dirty man^^; 
these were your own words ; and you may think it possible 
that I am come to support you with fresh evidence. In 
a sense, it is even so. Damien has been too much de- 
picted with a conventional halo and conventional features; 
so drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark 
or the pen to express the individual; or who perhaps were 
only blinded and silenced by generous admiration, such as 
I partly envy for myself — such as you, if your soul were 
enlightened, would envy on your bended knees. It is 
the least defect of such a method of portraiture that it 
makes the path easy for the devil's advocate, and leaves 
for the misuse of the slanderer a considerable field of 
truth. For the truth that is suppressed by friends is 
the readiest weapon of the enemy. The world, in your 
despite, may perhaps owe you something, if your letter 
be the means of substituting once for all a credible like- 
ness for a wax abstraction. For, if that world at all re- 



FATHER DAMIEN 201 

member you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall 
be named Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your 
letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage. 

You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my 
inclement destiny to become acquainted, not with Da- 
mien, but with Dr. Hyde. When I visited the lazaretto 
Damien was already in his resting grave. But such in- 
formation as I have, I gathered on the spot in conver- 
sation with those who knew him well and long: some in- 
deed who revered his memory; but others who had 
sparred and wrangled with him, who beheld him with 
no halo, who perhaps regarded him with small respect, 
and through whose unprepared and scarcely partial com- 
munications the plain, human features of the man shone 
on me convincingly. These gave me what knowledge 
I possess; and I learnt it in that scene where it could 
be most completely and sensitively understood — Kala- 
wao, which you have never visited, about which you 
have never so much as endeavoured to inform yourself: 
for, brief as your letter is, you have found the means to 
stumble into that confession. ''Less than one-half of the 
island,^^ you say, "is devoted to the lepers.^^ Molokai — 
^'Molokai ahina/^ the "grey,'' lofty, and most desolate 
island — along all its northern side plunges a front of preci- 
pice into a sea of unusual profundity. This range of cliff 
is, from east to west, the true end and frontier of the 
island. Only in one spot there projects into the ocean 
a certain triangular and rugged down, grassy, stony, 
windy, and rising in the midst into a hill with a dead 
crater: the whole bearing to the cliff that overhangs it 
somewhat the same relation as a bracket to a wall. With 
this hint you will now be able to pick out the leper station 
on a map; you will be able to judge how much of Molokai 
is thus cut off between the surf and precipice, whether 
less than a half, or less than a quarter, or a fifth, or a 



202 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

tenth — or say, a twentieth; and the next time you burst 
into print you will be in a position to share with us the 
issue of your calculations. 

I imagine you to be one of those persons who talk with 
cheerfulness of that place which oxen and wainropes 
could not drag you to behold. You, who do not even 
know its situation on the map, probably denounce sen- 
sational descriptions, stretching your limbs the while in 
your pleasant parlour on Beretania Street. When I was 
pulled ashore there one early morning, there sat with 
me in the boat two sisters, bidding farewell (in humble 
imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human life. 
One of these wept silently; I could not withhold myself 
from joining her. Had you been there, it is my belief 
that nature would have triumphed even in you; and as 
the boat drew but a little nearer, and you beheld the stairs 
crowded with abominable deformations of our common 
manhood, and saw yourself landing in the midst of such 
a population as only now and then surrounds us in the 
horror of a nightmare — what a haggard eye you w^ould 
have rolled over your reluctant shoulder towards the 
house on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had you 
found every fourth face a blot upon the landscape; had 
you visited the hospital and seen the butt-ends of human 
beings lying there almost unrecognisable, but still breath- 
ing, still thinking, still remembering; you would have 
understood that life in the lazaretto is an ordeal from 
which the nerves of a man's spirit shrink, even as his eye 
quails under the brightness of the sun; you would have 
felt it was (even to-day) a pitiful place to visit and a hell 
to dwell in. It is not the fear of possible infection. That 
seems a little thing when compared w^ith the pain, the 
pity, and the disgust of the visitor's surroundings, and 
the atmosphere of affliction, disease, and physical dis- 
grace in which he breathes. I do not think I am a man 



FATHER DAMIEN 203 

more than usually timid; but I never recall the days and 
nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days 
and seven nights), without heartfelt thankfulness that I 
am somewhere else. I find in my diary that I speak of 
my stay as a "grinding experience'': I have once jotted 
in the margin, ^'Harrowing is the word''; and when 
the Mokolii bore me at last towards the outer world, I 
kept repeating to myself, with a new conception of their 
pregnancy, those simple words of the song — 

" 'T is the most distressful country that ever yet was seen." 

And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was 
a settlement purged, bettered, beautified; the new village 
built, the hospital and the Bishop-Home excellently ar- 
ranged; the sisters, the doctor, and the missionaries, all 
indefatigable in their noble tasks. It was a different 
place when Damien came there, and made his great re- 
nunciation, and slept that first night under a tree amidst 
his rotting brethren: alone with pestilence; and looking 
forward (with what courage, with what pitiful sinkings 
of dread, God only knows) to a lifetime of dressing sores 
and stumps. 

You will say, perhaps, I am too sensitive, that sights 
as painful abound in cancer hospitals and are confronted 
daily by doctors and nurses. I have long learned to ad- 
mire and envy the doctors and the nurses. But there is 
no cancer hospital so large and populous as Kalawao and 
Kalaupapa; and in such a matter every fresh case, like 
every inch of length in the pipe of an organ, deepens the 
note of the impression; for what daunts the onlooker is 
that monstrous sum of human suffering by which he 
stands surrounded. Lastly, no doctor or nurse is called 
upon to enter once for all the doors of that gehenna; they 
do not say farewell, they need not abandon hope, on its 
sad threshold; they but go for a time to their high calling, 



204 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and can look forward as they go to relief, to recreation, 
and to rest. But Damien shut to with his own hand the 
doors of his own sepulchre. 

I shall now extract three passages from my diary at 
Kalawao. 

A. "Damien is dead and already somewhat ungrate- 
fully remembered in the field of his labours and suffer- 
ings. * He was a good man, but very officious,' says one. 
Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests so easily 
do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of 
a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, aud 
the good sense to laugh at'' [over] "it. A plain man it 
seems he was; I cannot find he was a popular." 

B. "After Ragsdale's death" [Ragsdale was a famous 
Luna, or overseer, of the unruly settlement] "there fol- 
lowed a brief term of oflBce by Father Damien which 
served only to publish the weakness of that noble man. 
He was rough in his ways, and he had no control. Au- 
thority was relaxed; Damien's life was threatened, and 
he was soon eager to resign." 

C. " Of Damien I begin to have an idea. He seems 
to have been a man of the peasant class, certainly of the 
peasant type: shrewd; ignorant and bigoted, yet with an 
open mind, and capable of receiving and digesting a re- 
proof if it were bluntly administered; superbly generous 
in the least thing as well as in the greatest, and as ready 
to give his last shirt (although not without human grum- 
bling) as he had been to sacrifice his life; essentially indis- 
creet and officious, which made him a troublesome col- 
league; domineering in all his ways, which made him 
incurably unpopular with the Kanakas, but yet destitute 
of real authority, so that his boys laughed at him and he 
must carry out his wishes by the means of bribes. He 
learned to have a mania for doctoring; and set up the 
Kanakas against the remedies of his regular rivals: per- 



FATHER DAMIEN 205 

haps (if anything matter at all in the treatment of such a 
disease) the worst thing that he did, and certainly the 
easiest. The best and worst of the man appear very 
plainly in his dealings with Mr. Chapman^s money; he 
had originally laid it out'^ [intended to lay it out] "en- 
tirely for the benefit of Catholics, and even so not wisely; 
but after a long, plain talk, he admitted his error fully 
and revised the list. The sad state of the boys' home 
is in part the result of his lack of control; in part, of his 
own slovenly ways and false ideas of hygiene. Brother 
oflBcials used to call it ^Damien's Chinatown.' ^Well,* 
they would say, 'your Chinatown keeps growing.' And 
he would laugh with perfect good-nature, and adhere to 
his errors with perfect obstinacy. So much I have gath- 
ered of truth about this plain, noble human brother and 
father of ours; his imperfections are the traits of his face, 
by which we know him for our fellow; his martyrdom 
and his example nothing can lessen or annul; and only 
a person here on the spot can properly appreciate their 
greatness." 

I have set down these private passages, as you per- 
ceive, without correction; thanks to you, the public has 
them in their bluntness. They are almost a list of the 
man's faults, for it is rather these that I was seeking: 
with his virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, I and 
the world were already suflBciently acquainted. I was 
besides a little suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no 
ill sense, but merely because Damien's admirers and 
disciples were the least likely to be critical. I know you 
will be more suspicious still; and the facts set down above 
were one and all collected from the lips of Protestants 
who had opposed the father in his life. Yet I am 
strangely deceived, or they build up the image of a man, 
with all his weaknesses, essentially heroic, and alive with 
rugged honesty, generosity, and mirth. 



206 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Take it for what it is, rough private jottings of the 
worst sides of Damien's character, collected from the 
lips of those who had laboured with and (in your own 
phrase) ^*knew the man^^; — though I question whether 
Damien would have said that he knew you. Take it, 
and observe with wonder how well you were served by 
your gossips, how ill by your intelligence and sympa- 
thy; in how many points of fact we are at one, and how 
widely our appreciations vary. There is something 
wrong here; either with you or me. It is possible, for 
instance, that you, who seem to have so many ears in 
Kalawao, had heard of the affair of Mr. Chapman's 
money, and were singly struck by Damien's intended 
wrong-doing. I was struck with that also, and set it 
fairly down; but I was struck much more by the fact that 
he had the honesty of mind to be convinced. I may here 
tell you that it was a long business; that one of his col- 
leagues sat with him late into the night, multiplying 
arguments and accusations; that the father listened as 
usual with "perfect good-nature and perfect obstinacy"; 
but at the last, when he was persuaded — " Yes," said he, 
"I am very much obliged to you; you have done me a 
service; it would have been a theft." There are many 
(not Catholics merely) who require their heroes and 
saints to be infallible; to these the story will be paiaful; 
not to the true lovers, patrons, and servants of mankind. 

And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you 
are one of those who have an eye for faults and failures; 
that you take a pleasure to find and publish them; and 
that, having found them, you make haste to forget the 
overvailing virtues and the real success which had alone 
introduced them to your knowledge. It is a dangerous 
frame of mind. That you may understand how danger- 
ous, and into what a situation it has already brought 
you, we will (if you please) go hand-in-hand through the 



FATHER DAMIEN 207 

different phrases of your letter, and candidly examine 
each from the point of view of its truth, its appositeness, 
and its charity. 

Damien was coarse. 

It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers 
who had only a coarse old peasant for their friend and 
father. But you, who were so refined, why were you 
not there, to cheer them with the lights of culture ? Or 
may I remind you that we have some reason to doubt 
if John the Baptist were genteel; and in the case of 
Peter, on whose career you doubtless dwell approvingly 
in the pulpit, no doubt at all he was a "coarse, head- 
strong^^ fisherman! Yet even in our Protestant Bibles 
Peter is called Saint. 

Damien was dirty. 

He was. Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this 
dirty comrade! But the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food 
in a fine house. 

Damien was headstrong. 

I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his 
strong head and heart. 

Damien was bigoted. 

I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not 
fond of me. But what is meant by bigotry, that we 
should regard it as a blemish in a priest? Damien be- 
lieved his own religion with the simplicity of a peasant 
or a child; as I would I could suppose that you do. 
For this, I wonder at him some way off; and had that 
been his only character, should have avoided him in life. 
But the point of interest in Damien, which has caused 
him to be so much talked about and made him at last 
the subject of your pen and mine, was that, in him, his 



208 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

bigotry, his intense and narrow faith, wrought potently 
for good, and strengthened him to be one of the world's 
heroes and exemplars. 

Damien was not sent to Molokai, but went there with- 
out orders. 

Is this a misreading ? or do you really mean the words 
for blame? I have heard Christ, in the pulpits of our 
Church, held up for imitation on the ground that His 
sacrifice was voluntary. Does Dr. Hyde think otherwise ? 

Damien did not stay at the settlement, etc. 

It is true he was allowed many indulgences. Am I 
to understand that you blame the father for profiting by 
these, or the oflScers for granting them ? In either case, 
it is a mighty Spartan standard to issue from the house 
on Beretania Street; and I am convinced you will find 
yourself with few supporters. 

Damien had no hand in the reforms, etc. 

I think even you will admit that I have already been 
frank in my description of the man I am defending; but 
before I take you up upon this head, I will be franker 
still, and tell you that perhaps nowhere in the world can 
a man taste a more pleasurable sense of contrast than 
when he passes from Damien's " Chinatown ^^ at Kala- 
wao to the beautiful Bishop-Home at Kalaupapa. At 
this point, in my desire to make all fair for you, I will 
break my rule and adduce Catholic testimony. Here is 
a passage from my diary about my visit to the China- 
town, from which you will see how it is (even now) re- 
garded by its own officials: "We went round all the 
dormitories, refectories, etc. — dark and dingy enough, 
with a superficial cleanliness, which he'^ [Mr. Dutton, 
the lay brother] "did not seek to defend. *It is almost 



FATHER DAMIEN 209 

decent/ said he;/ the sisters will make that all right when 
we get them here/ ^' And yet I gathered it was already 
better since Damien was dead, and far better than when 
he was there alone and had his own (not always excellent) 
way. I have now come far enough to meet you on a com- 
mon ground of fact; and I tell you that, to a mind not 
prejudiced by jealousy, all the reforms of the lazaretto, 
and even those which he most vigorously opposed, are 
properly the work of Damien. They are the evidence of 
his success; they are what his heroism provoked from 
the reluctant and the careless. Many were before him 
in the field; Mr. Meyer, for instance, of whose faithful 
work we hear too little: there have been many since; and 
some had more worldly wisdom, though none had more 
devotion, than our saint. Before his day, even you will 
confess, they had effected little. It was his part, by one 
striking act of martyrdom, to direct all men's eyes on that 
distressful country. At a blow, and with the price of his 
life, he made the place illustrious and public. And that, 
if you will consider largely, was the one reform needful; 
pregnant of all that should succeed. It brought money; 
it brought (best individual addition of them all) the sis- 
ters; it brought supervision, for public opinion and pub- 
lic interest landed with the man at Kalawao. If ever 
any man brought reforms, and died to bring them, it 
was he. There is not a clean cup or towel in the Bishop- 
Home, but dirty Damien washed it. 

Damien was not a pure man in his relations with 
women, etc. 

How do you know that ? Is this the nature of the con- 
versation in that house on Beretania Street which the 
cabman envied, driving past? — racy details of the mis- 
conduct of the poor peasant priest, toiling under the cliffs 
of Molokai? 



210 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Many have visited the station before me; they seem 
not to have heard the rumour. When I was there I 
heard many shocking tales, for my informants were men 
speaking with the plainness of the laity; and I heard 
plenty of complaints of Damien. Why was this never 
mentioned ? and how came it to you in the retirement of 
your clerical parlour? 

But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scan- 
dal, when I read it in your letter, was not new to me. I 
had heard it once before; and I must tell you how. 
There came to Samoa a man from Honolulu; he, in a 
public-house on the beach, volunteered the statement 
that Damien had ^* contracted the disease from having 
connection with the female lepers^'; and I find a joy in 
telling you how the report was welcomed in a public- 
house. A man sprang to his feet; I am not at liberty to 
give his name, but from what I heard I doubt if you 
would care to have him to dinner in Beretania Street. 

'^ You miserable little '' (here is a word I dare not 

print, it would so shock your ears). "You miserable lit- 
tle y^ he cried, " if the story were a thousand times 

true, can't you see you are a million times a lower 

for daring to repeat it?'' I wish it could be told of you 
that when the report reached you in your house, per- 
haps after family worship, you had found in your soul 
enough holy anger to receive it with the same expres- 
sions: ay, even with that one which I dare not print; it 
would not need to have been blotted away, like Uncle 
Toby's oath, by the tears of the recording angel; it would 
have been counted to you for your brightest righteous*- 
ness. But you have deliberately chosen the part of the 
man from Honolulu, and you have played it with im- 
provenients of your own. The man from Honolulu — 
miserable, leering creature — communicated the tale 
to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public- 



FATHER DAMIEN 211 

house, where (I will so far agree with your temperance 
opinions) man is not always at his noblest; and the man 
from Honolulu had himself been drinking — drinking, we 
may charitably fancy, to excess. It was to your " Dear 
Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage,'^ that you chose to 
communicate the sickening story; and the blue ribbon 
which adorns your portly bosom forbids me to allow you 
the extenuating plea that you were drunk when it was 
done. Your "dear brother^' — a brother indeed — made 
haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of grace, per- 
haps) to the religious papers; where, after many months, 
I found and read and wondered at it; and whence I have 
now reproduced it for the wonder of others. And you 
and your dear brother have, by this cycle of operations, 
built up a contrast very edifying to examine in detail. 
The man whom you would not care to have to dinner, on 
the one side; on the other, the Reverend Dr. Hyde and 
the Reverend H. B. Gage: the Apia bar-room, the Hono- 
lulu manse. 

But I fear you scarce appreciate how you appear to 
your fellow-men; and to bring it home to you, I will sup- 
pose your story to be true. I will suppose — and God 
forgive me for supposing it — that Damien faltered and 
stumbled in his narrow path of duty; I will suppose that, 
in the horror of his isolation, perhaps in the fever of 
incipient disease, he, who was doing so much more than 
he had sworn, failed in the letter of his priestly oath — he, 
who was so much a better man than either you or me, 
who did what we have never dreamed of daring — he too 
tasted of our common frailty. " O, lago, the pity of itP' 
The least tender should be moved to tears; the most in- 
credulous to prayer. And all that you could do was to 
pen your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage! 

Is it growing at all clear to you what a picture you have 
drawn of your own heart ? I will try yet once again to 



212 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

make it clearer. You had a father: suppose this tale 

were about him, and some informant brought it to you, 

proof in hand: I am not making too high an estimate of 

your emotional nature when I suppose you would regret 

the circumstance ? that you would feel the tale of frailty 

the more keenly since it shamed the author of your days ? 

and that the last thing you would do would be to publish 

it in the religious press ? Well, the man who tried to do 

what Damien did, is my father, and the father of 

the man in the Apia bar, and the father of all 

who love goodness; and he was your 

father too, if God had given 

you grace to see it. 



STORIES 



STORIES 

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT ^ 

It was late in November, 1456. The snow fell over 
Paris with rigorous, relentless persistence; sometimes the 
wind made a sally and scattered it in flying vortices; some- 
times there was a lull, and flake after flake descended 
out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, intermi- 
nable. To poor people, looking up under moist eye- 
brows, it seemed a wonder where it all came from. 
Master Francis Villon had propounded an alternative 
that afternoon, at a tavern window: was it only Pagan 
Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus ? or were the holy 
angels moulting ? He was only a poor Master of Arts, 

^ Published in Temple Bar in October, 1877, this story was the 
first of Stevenson's to be printed. It was inspired by a study of 
the hfe of Fran9ois Villon (143 1-? 1484), an early French poet, one 
of the great masters of gay scurrility in verse, and the author of the 
most famous of ballades, "Where are the snows of yesteryear?'* 
Stevenson's study of this reprobate and genius had already borne 
fruit in an essay, Frangois Villon, Student, Poet, and HousehreakeVf 
which had been published in The Cornhill Magazine for August of 
this year, and is reprinted in the volume entitled Familiar Studies of 
Men and Books. In that essay, which is chiefly biographical, Dom 
Nicholas, Tabary, and Montigny appear as historical figures, com- 
panion pickpockets with Villon, and gripped at last, as he was, by 
the law. The chaplain of St. Benoit-le-Betourne, who adopted 
Villon, and the poet's mother also find a place in this historical study, 
but the Seigneur de Brisetout is probably fictitious. Stevenson re- 
fers to a record of the murder of Thevenin in a house by the ceme- 
tery of St. John. Its possibiHties seem to have caught his eye, for 
in the above-mentioned essay he says, " If time had only spared us 
some particulars, might not this last [the murder] have furnished us 
with the matter of a grisly writer's tale?" Time did not spare the 
particulars, but in A Lodging for the Night Stevenson has invented 
them. This story was reprinted in the volume entitled New Arabian 
Nights, 1882. 

215 



216 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

he went on; and as the question somewhat touched upon 
divinity, he durst not venture to conclude. A silly old 
priest from Montargis, who was among the company, 
treated the young rascal to a bottle of wine in honour of 
the jest and grimaces with which it was accompanied, and 
swore on his own white beard that he had been just such 
another irreverent dog when he was Villon^s age. 

The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freez- 
ing; and the flakes were large, damp, and adhesive. 
The whole city was sheeted up. An army might have 
marched from end to end and not a footfall given the 
alarm. If there were any belated birds in heaven, they 
saw the island like a large white patch, and the bridges 
like slim white spars, on the black ground of the river. 
High up overhead the snow settled among the tracery 
of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; 
many a statue wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque 
or sainted head. The gargoyles had been transformed 
into great false noses, drooping towards the point. The 
crockets were like upright pillows swollen on one side. 
In the intervals of the wind, there was a dull sound of 
dripping about the precincts of the church. 

The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of 
the snow. All the graves were decently covered; tall 
white housetops stood around in grave array; worthy 
burghers were long ago in bed, be-nightcapped like their 
domiciles; there was no light in all the neighbourhood 
but a little peep from a lamp that hung swinging 
in the church choir, and tossed the shadows to and fro 
in time to its oscillations. The clock was hard on ten 
when the patrol went by with halberds and a lantern, 
beating their hands; and they saw nothing suspicious 
about the cemetery of St. John. 

Yet there was a small house, backed up against the 
cemetery wall, which was still awake, and awake to evil 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT ^ 217 

purpose, in that snoring district. There was not much 
to betray it from without; only a stream of warm vapour 
from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted 
on the roof, and a few half-obliterated footprints at the 
door. But within, behind the shuttered windows. Mas- 
ter Francis Villon the poet, and some of the thievish crew 
with whom he consorted, were keeping the night alive 
and passing round the bottle. 

A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and 
ruddy glow from the arched chimney. Before this strad- 
dled Dom Nicolas, the Picardy monk, with his skirts 
picked up and his fat legs bared to the comfortable 
warmth. His dilated shadow cut the room in half; and 
the firelight only escaped on either side of his broad per- 
son, and in a little pool between his outspread feet. His 
face had the beery, bruised appearance of the continual 
drinker's; it was covered with a network of congested 
veins; purple in ordinary circumstances, but now pale 
violet, for even with his back to the fire the cold pinched 
him on the other side. His cowl had half fallen back, and 
made a strange excrescence on either side of his bull neck. 
So he straddled, grumbling, and cut the room in half with 
the shadow of his portly frame. 

On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled 
together over a scrap of parchment; Villon making a bal- 
lade which he was to call the ^' Ballade of Roast Fish/' 
and Tabary spluttering admiration at his shoulder. The 
poet was a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hol- 
low cheeks and thin black locks. He carried his four- 
and-twenty years with feverish animation. Greed had 
made folds about his eyes, evil smiles had puckered his 
mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his face. 
It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. 
His hands were small and prehensile, with fingers knot- 
ted like a cord; and they were continually flickering in 



218 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

front of him in violent and expressive pantomime. As 
for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility 
breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips: he 
had become a thief, just as he might have become the 
most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that 
rules the lives of human geese and human donkeys. 

At the monk^s other hand, Montigny and Thevenin 
Pensete played a game of chance. About the first there 
clung some flavour of good birth and training, as about 
a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly in the 
person; something aquiline and darkling in the face. 
Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather: he had done 
a good stroke of knavery that afternoon in the Faubourg 
St. Jacques, and all night he had been gaining from 
Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald 
head shone rosily in a garland of red curls; his little pro- 
tuberant stomach shook with silent chucklings as he swept 
in his gains. 

^'Doubles or quits?" said Thevenin. 

Montigny nodded grimly. 

" Some may prefer to dine in state,^^ wrote Villon, " On 
bread and cheese on silver plate. Or, or — help me out, 
Guido!" 

Tabary giggled. 

" Or parsley on a golden dish/' scribbled the poet. 

The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow 
before it, and sometimes raised its voice in a victorious 
whoop, and made sepulchral grumblings in the chimney. 
The cold was growing sharper as the night went on. 
Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the gust with some- 
thing between a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, 
uncomfortable talent of the poet's, much detested by the 
Picardy monk. 

"Can't you hear it rattle in the gibbet ?'* said Villon. 
"They are all dancing the devil's jig on nothing, up 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 219 

there. You may dance, my gallants, you '11 be none the 
warmer! Whew! what a gust! Down went somebody 
just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged med- 
lar-tree! — I say, Dom Nicolas, it'll be cold to-night on 
the St. Denis Road?'' he asked. 

Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and seemed 
to choke upon his Adam's apple. Montfaucon, the great 
grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by the St. Denis Road, 
and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for 
Tabary, he laughed immoderately over the medlars; he 
had never heard anything more light-hearted; and he held 
his sides and crowed. Villon fetched him a fillip on the 
nose, which turned his mirth into an attack of coughing. 

"Oh, stop that row," said Villon, "and think of 
rhymes to 'fish.'" 

" Doubles or quits," said Montigny doggedly. 

" With all my heart," quoth Thevenin. 

" Is there any more in that bottle ? " asked the monk. 

"Open another," said Villon. "How do you ever 
hope to fill that big hogshead, your body, with little 
things like bottles? And how do you expect to get to 
heaven ? How many angels, do you fancy, can be spared 
to carry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you 
think yourself another Elias — and they '11 send the coach 
for you?" 

" Hominibus impossibile,'^ ^ replied the monk as he filled 
his glass. 

Tabary was in ecstasies. 

Villon filliped his nose again. 

" Laugh at my jokes, if you like," he said. 

"It was very good," objected Tabary. 

Villon made a face at him. "Think of rhymes to 
'fish,'" he said. "What have you to do with Latin? 
You 'U wish you knew none of it at the great assizes, 
^ Impossible, to maiu. 



220 SELECTIONS FkOM STEVENSON 

when the devil calls for Guido Tabary, clericus— the devil 
with the hump-back and red-hot finger-nails. Talking of 
the devil/' he added in a whisper, ^^look at MontignyT' 

All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not 
seem to be enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to 
a side; one nostril nearly shut, and the other much in- 
flated. The black dog was on his back, as people say, 
in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard 
under the gruesome burden. 

^'He looks as if he could knife him,^* whispered Ta- 
bary, with round eyes. 

The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread 
his open hands to the red embers. It was the cold that 
thus affected Dom Nicolas, and not any excess of moral 
sensibility. 

^' Come now,'' said Villon — " about this ballade. How 
does it run so far?" And beating time with his hand, he 
read it aloud to Tabary. 

They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme by a brief 
and fatal movement among the gamesters. The round 
was completed, and Thevenin was just opening his 
mouth to claim another victory, when Montigny leaped 
up, swift as an adder, and stabbed him to the heart. 
The blow took effect before he had time to utter a cry, 
before he had time to move. A tremor or two con- 
vulsed his frame; his hands opened and shut, his heels 
rattled on the floor; then his head rolled backward over 
one shoulder with the eyes wide open; and Thevenin 
Pensete's spirit had returned to Him who made it. 

Every one sprang to his feet; but the business was over 
in two twos. The four living fellows looked at each other 
in rather a ghastly fashion; the dead man contemplating 
a corner of the roof with a singular and ugly leer. 

"My God!'' said Tabary; and he began to pray in 
Latin, 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 221 

Villon broke out into hysterical laughter. He came a 
step forward and ducked a ridiculous bow at Thevenin, 
and laughed still louder. Then he sat down suddenly, 
all of a heap, upon a stool, and continued laughing bit- 
terly, as though he would shake himself to pieces. 

Montigny recovered his composure first. 

" Let 's see what he has about him,'^ he remarked, and 
he picked the dead man's pockets with a practised hand, 
and divided the money into four equal portions on the 
table. ^* There 's for you," he said. ' 

The monk received his share with a deep sigh, and a 
single stealthy glance at the dead Thevenin, who was 
beginning to sink into himself and topple sideways oflf 
the chair. 

" We 're all in for it,'' cried Villon, swallowing his 
mirth. "It 's a hanging job for every man jack of us 
that 's here — not to speak of those who aren 't." He 
made a shocking gesture in the air with his raised right 
hand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one 
side, so as to counterfeit the appearance of one who has 
been hanged. Then he pocketed his share of the spoil, 
and executed a shuflBe with his feet as if to restore the 
circulation. 

Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at 
the money, and retired to the other end of the apartment. 

Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and 
drew out the dagger, which was followed by a jet of 
blood. 

"You fellows had better be moving," he said, as he 
wiped the blade on his victim's doublet. 

"I think we had," returned Villon, with a gulp. 
"Damn his fat head!" he broke out. "It sticks in my 
throat like phlegm. What right has a man to have red 
hair when he is dead?" And he fell all of a heap again 
upon the stool, and fairly covered his face with his hands. 



222 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Ta- 
bary feebly chiming in. 

^' Cry baby/^ said the monk. 

"I always said he was a woman/' added Montigny, 
with a sneer. ^^Sit up, can't you?'' he went on, giving 
another shake to the murdered body. "Tread out that 
fire, Nick!" 

But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking 
Villon's purse, as the poet sat, limp and trembling, on 
the stool where he had been making a ballade not three 
minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly de- 
manded a share of the booty, which the monk silently 
promised as he passed the little bag into the bosom of his 
gown. In many ways an artistic nature unfits a man for 
practical existence. 

No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Vil- 
lon shook himself, jumped to his feet, and began help- 
ing to scatter and extinguish the embers. Meanwhile 
Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered into 
the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddle- 
some patrol in sight. Still it wa^ judged wiser to slip 
out severally; and as Villon was himself in a hurry to 
escape from the neighbourhood of the dead Thevenin, 
and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him 
before he should discover the loss of his money, he was 
the first by general consent to issue forth into the street. 

The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from 
heaven. Only a few vapours, as thin as moonlight, 
fleeted rapidly across the stars. It was bitter cold; and 
by a common optical effect, things seemed almost more 
definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city 
was absolutely still; a company of white hoods, a field full 
of little alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his 
fortune. Would it were still snowing! Now, wherever 
he went, he left an indelible trail behind him on the 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 223 

glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered 
to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he 
went he must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope 
that bound him to the crime and would bind him to the 
gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him 
with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if 
to pluck up his own spirits, and choosing a street at ran- 
dom, stepped boldly forward in the snow. 

Two things preoccupied him as he went; the aspect 
of the gallows at Montfaucon in this bright, windy phase 
of the night's existence, for one; and for another, the look 
of the dead man with his bald head and garland of red 
curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept 
quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant 
thoughts by mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked 
back over his shoulder with a sudden nervous jerk; but 
he was the only moving thing in the white streets, except 
when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the 
snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts of glitter- 
ing dust. 

Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump 
and a couple of lanterns. The clump was in motion, and 
the lanterns swung as though carried by men walking. 
It was a patrol. And though it was merely crossing his 
line of march he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot as 
speedily as he could. He was not in the humour to be 
challenged, and he was conscious of making a very con- 
spicuous mark upon the snow. Just on his left hand 
there stood a great hotel, with some turrets and a large 
porch before the door; it was half-ruinous, he remem- 
bered, and had long stood empty; and so he made three 
steps of it, and jumped into the shelter of the porch. It 
was pretty dark inside, after the glimmer of the snowy 
streets, and he was groping forward with outspread 
hands, when he stumbled over some substance which of- 



224 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

fered an indescribable mixture of resistances, hard and 
soft, firm and loose. His heart gave a leap, and he 
sprang two steps back and stared dreadfully at the ob- 
stacle. Then he gave a little laugh of relief. It was only 
a woman, and she dead. He knelt beside her to make 
sure upon this latter point. She was freezing cold, and 
rigid like a stick. A little ragged finery fluttered in the 
wind about her hair, and her cheeks had been heavily 
rouged that same afternoon. Her pockets were quite 
empty; but in her stocking, underneath the garter, Villon 
found two of the small coins that went by the name of 
whites. It was little enough; but it was always some- 
thing; and the poet was moved with a deep sense of pathos 
that she should have died before she had spent her money. 
That seemed to him a dark and pitiable mystery; and he 
looked from the coins in his hand to the dead woman, and 
back again to the coins, shaking his head over the riddle 
of man's life. Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes 
just after he had conquered France, and this poor jade 
cut off by a cold draught in a great man's doorway, 
before she had time to spend her couple of whites — it 
seemed a cruel way to carry on the world. Two whites 
would have taken such a little while to squander; and yet 
it would have been one more good taste in the mouth, 
one more smack of the lips, before the devil got the soul, 
and the body was left to birds and vermin. He would 
like to use all his tallow before the light was blown out 
and the lantern broken. 

While these thoughts were passing through his mind, 
he was feeling, half mechanically, for his purse. Sud- 
denly his heart stopped beating; a feeling of cold scales 
passed up the back of his legs, and a cold blow seemed 
to fall upon his scalp. He stood petrified for a moment; 
then he felt again with one feverish movement; and then 
his loss burst upon him, and he was covered at once with 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 225 

perspiration. To spendthrifts money is so living and 
actual — it is such a thin veil between them and their 
pleasures ! There is only one limit to their fortune — that 
of time; and a spendthrift with only a few crowns is the 
Emperor of Rome until they are spent. For such a per- 
son to lose his money is to suffer the most shocking re- 
verse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing, 
in a breath. And all the more if he has put his head in 
the halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that 
same purse, so dearly earned, so foolishly departed ! Vil- 
lon stood and cursed; he threw the two whites into the 
street; he shook his fist at heaven; he stamped, and was 
not horrified to find himself trampling the poor corpse. 
Then he began rapidly to retrace his steps towards the 
house beside the cemetery. He had forgotten all fear 
of the patrol, which was long gone by at any rate, and had 
no idea but that of his lost purse. It was in vain that he 
looked right and left upon the snow: nothing was to be 
seen. He had not dropped it in the streets. Had it fallen 
in the house ? He would have liked dearly to go in and 
see; but the idea of the grisly occupant unmanned him. 
And he saw besides, as he drew near, that their efforts to 
put out the fire had been unsuccessful; on the contrary, it 
had broken into a blaze, and a changeful light played in 
the chinks of door and window, and revived his terror 
for the authorities and Paris gibbet. 

He returned to the hotel with the porch, and groped 
about upon the snow for the money he had thrown away 
in his childish passion. But he could only find one 
white; the other had probably struck sideways and sunk 
deeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his 
projects for a rousing night in some wild tavern vanished 
utterly away. And it was not only pleasure that fled 
laughing from his grasp; positive discomfort, positive 
pain, attacked him as he stood ruefully before the porch. 



226 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

His perspiration had dried upon him; and although the 
wind had now fallen, a binding frost was setting in 
stronger with every hour, and he felt benumbed and sick 
at heart. What was to be done ? Late as was the hour, 
improbable as was success, he would try the house of his 
adopted father, the chaplain of St. Benoit. 

He ran there all the way, and knocked timidly. There 
was no answer. He knocked again and again, taking 
heart with every stroke; and at last steps were heard 
approaching from within. A barred wicket fell open 
in the iron-studded door, and emitted a gush of yellow 
light. 

" Hold up your face to the wicket," said the chaplain 
from within. 

^' It 's only me," whimpered Villon. 

''Oh, it ^s only you, is it?" returned the chaplain; and 
he cursed him with foul unpriestly oaths for disturbing 
him at such an hour, and bade him be off to hell, where 
he came from. 

"My hands are blue to the wrist," pleaded Villon; 
"my feet are dead and full of twinges; my nose aches 
with the sharp air; the cold lies at my heart. I may be 
dead before morning. Only this once, father, and before 
God, I will never ask again!" 

"You should have come earlier," said the ecclesiastic 
coolly. "Young men require a lesson now and then." 
He shut the wicket and retired deliberately into the in- 
terior of the house. 

Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with 
his hands and feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chap- 
lain. 

"Wormy old fox!" he cried. "If I had mj hand un- 
der your twist,^ I would send you flying headlong into 
the bottomless pit." 

^ Between your legs. 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 227 

A door shut in the interior, faintly audible to the poet 
down long passages. He passed his hand over his mouth 
with an oath. And then the humour of the situation 
struck him, and he laughed and looked lightly up to 
heaven, where the stars seemed to be winking over his 
discomjfiture. 

What was to be done ? It looked very like a night in 
the frosty streets. The idea of the dead woman popped 
into his imagination, and gave him a hearty fright; what 
had happened to her in the early night might very well 
happen to him before morning. And he so young! and 
with such immense possibilities of disorderly amusement 
before him! He felt quite pathetic over the notion of his 
own fate, as if it had been some one else's, and made a 
little imaginative vignette of the scene in the morning 
when they should find his body. 

He passed all his chances under review, turning the 
white between his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately 
he was on bad terms with some old friends who would 
once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had 
lampooned them in verses; he had beaten and cheated 
them; and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, 
he thought there was at least one who might perhaps 
relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least, 
and he would go and see. 

On the way, two little accidents happened to him 
which coloured his musings in a very different manner. 
For, first, he fell in with the track of a patrol, and walked 
in it for some hundred yards, although it lay out of his 
direction. And this spirited him up; at least he had 
confused his trail; for he was still possessed with the 
idea of people tracking him all about Paris over the 
snow, and collaring him next morning before he was 
awake. The other matter affected him quite differently. 
He passed a street corner, where, not so long before, a 



228 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

woman and her child had been devoured by wolves. 
This was just the kind of weather, he reflected, when 
wolves might take it into their heads to enter Paris again; 
and a lone man in these deserted streets would run the 
chance of something worse than a mere scare. He 
stopped and looked upon the place with an unpleasant 
interest — it was a centre where several lanes intersected 
each other; and he looked down them all, one after an- 
other, and held his breath to listen, lest he should detect 
some galloping black things on the snow or hear the sound 
of howling between him and the river. He remembered 
his mother telling him the story and pointing out the spot, 
while he was yet a child. His mother! if he only knew 
where she lived, he might make sure at least of shelter. 
He determined he would inquire upon the morrow; nay, 
he would go and see her too, poor old girl ! So thinking, 
he arrived at his destination — his last hope for the night. 
The house was quite dark, like its neighbours; and 
yet after a few taps, he heard a movement overhead, a 
door opening, and a cautious voice asking who was 
there. The poet named himself in a loud whisper, and 
waited, not without some trepidation, the result. Nor 
had he to wait long. A window was suddenly opened, 
and a pailful of slops splashed down upon the doorstep. 
Villon had not been unprepared for something of the 
sort, and had put himself as much in shelter as the nature 
of the porch admitted; but for all that, he was deplorably 
drenched below the waist. His hose began to freeze al- 
most at once. Death from cold and exposure stared him 
in the face; he remembered he was of phthisical tendency, 
and began coughing tentatively. But the gravity of the 
danger steadied his nerves. He stopped a few hundred 
yards from the door where he had been so rudely used, 
and reflected with his finger to his nose. He could only 
see one way of getting a lodging, and that was to take it. 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 229 

He had noticed a house not far away, which looked as if it 
might be easily broken into, and thither he betook him- 
self promptly, entertaining himself on the way with the 
idea of a room still hot, with a table still loaded with the 
remains of supper, where he might pass the rest of the 
black hours and whence he should issue, on the morrow, 
with an armful of valuable plate. He even considered 
on what viands and what wines he should prefer; and as 
he was calling the roll of his favourite dainties, roast 
fish presented itself to his mind with an odd mixture of 
amusement and horror. 

" I shall never finish that ballade,'^ he thought to him- 
self; and then, with another shudder at the recollection, 
''Oh, damn his fat head!'^ he repeated fervently, and 
spat upon the snow. 

The house in question looked dark at first sight; but 
as Villon made a preliminary inspection in search of the 
handiest point of attack, a little twinkle of light caught 
his eye from behind a curtained window. 

"The devil!'' he thought. "People awake! Some 
student or some saint, confound the crew! Can't they 
get drunk and lie in bed snoring like their neighbours! 
What's the good of curfew, and poor devils of bell- 
ringers jumping at a rope's end in bell-towers ? What 's 
the use of day, if people sit up all night ? The gripes to 
them!" He grinned as he saw where his logic was lead- 
ing him. " Every man to his business, after all," added 
he, " and if they 're awake, by the Lord, I may come by a 
supper honestly for once, and cheat the devil." 

He went boldly to the door and knocked with an 
assured hand. On both previous occasions, he had 
knocked timidly and with some dread of attracting no- 
tice; but now when he had just discarded the thought of 
a burglarious entry, knocking at a door seemed a mighty 
simple and innocent proceeding. The sound of his 



230 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

blows echoed through the house with thin, phantasmal 
reverberations, as though it were quite empty; bat these 
had scarcely died away before a measured tread drew 
near, a couple of bolts were withdrawn, and one wing 
was opened broadly, as though no guile or fear of guile 
were known to those within. A tall figure of a man, 
muscular and spare, but a little bent confronted Villon. 
The head was massive in bulk, but finely sculptured ; the 
nose blunt at the bottom, but refining upward to where 
it joined a pair of strong and honest eyebrows; the mouth 
and eyes surrounded with delicate markings, and the 
whole face based upon a thick white beard, boldly and 
squarely trimmed. Seen as it was by the light of a flicker- 
ing hand-lamp, it looked perhaps nobler than it had a 
right to do; but it was a fine face, honourable rather than 
intelligent, strong, simple, and righteous. 

"You knock late, sir,^^ said the old man in resonant, 
courteous tones. 

Villon cringed and brought up many servile words of 
apology; at a crisis of this sort the beggar was uppermost 
in him, and the man of genius hid his head with confusion. 

" You are cold," repeated the old man, " and hungry ? 
Well, step in.'^ And he ordered him into the house with 
a noble enough gesture. 

"Some great seigneur," thought Villon, as his host, 
setting down the lamp on the flagged pavement of the 
entry, shot the bolts once more into their places. 

"You will pardon me if I go in front," he said, when 
this was done; and he preceded the poet upstairs into a 
large apartment, warmed with a pan of charcoal and 
lit by a great lamp hanging from the roof. It was very 
bare of furniture: only some gold plate on a sideboard; 
some folios; and a stand of armour between the windows. 
Some smart tapestry hung upon the walls, representing 
the crucifixion of our Lord in one piece, and in another 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 231 

a scene of shepherds and shepherdesses by a running 
stream. Over the chimney was a shield of arms. 

" Will you seat yourself/^ said the old man, " and for- 
give me if I leave you ? I anLaljone^jn my house to-night, 
and if you are to eat I must forage for you myself." 

No sooner was his host gone than Villon leaped from 
the chair on which he had just seated himself, and began 
examining the room, with the stealth and passion of a cat. 
He weighed the gold flagons in his hand, opened all the 
folios, and investigated the arms upon the shield, and the 
stuff with which the seats were lined. He raised the 
window curtains, and saw that the windows were set 
with rich stained glass in figures, so far as he could see, 
of martial import. Then he stood in the middle of the 
room, drew a long breath, and retaining it with puffed 
cheeks, looked round and round him, turning on his heels, 
as if to impress every feature of the apartment on his 
memory. 

^* Seven pieces of plate," he said. " If there had been 
ten, I would have risked it. A fine house, and a fine old 
master, so help me all the saints!" 

And just then, hearing the old man's tread returning 
along the corridor, he stole back to his chair, and began 
humbly toasting his wet legs before the charcoal pan. 

His entertainer had a plate of meat in one hand and a 
jug of wine in the other. He set down the plate upon the 
table, motioning Villon to draw in his chair, and going to 
the sideboard, brought back two goblets which he filled. 

" I drink your better fortune," he said, gravely touch- 
ing Villon's cup with his own. 

^^To our better acquaintance," said the poet, growing 
bold. A mere man of the people would have been awed 
by the courtesy of the old seigneur, but Villon was hard- 
ened in that matter; he had made mirth for great lords 
before now, and found them as black rascals as himself. 



232 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

And so he devoted himself to the viands with a ravenous 
gusto, while the old man, leaning backward, watched him 
with steady, curious eyes. 

" You have blood on your shoulder, my man,^^ he said. 

Montigny must have laid his wet right hand upon him 
as he left the house. He cursed Montigny in his heart. 

" It was none of my shedding,^' he stammered. 

"I had not supposed so/* returned his host quietly. 
"A brawl ?^* 

"Well, something of that sort,** Villon admitted with 
a quaver. 

"Perhaps a fellow murdered?** 

" Oh, no, not murdered,** said the poet, more and more 
confused. " It was all fair play — murdered by accident. 
I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!** he added 
fervently. 

" One rogue the fewer, I dare say,** observed the mas- 
ter of the house. 

"You may dare to say that,** agreed Villon, infinitely 
relieved. "As big a rogue as there is between here and 
Jerusalem. He turned up his toes like a lamb. But it 
was a nasty thing to look at. I dare say you *ve seen dead 
men in your time, my lord?** he added, glancing at the 
armour. 

"Many,** said the old man. "I have followed the 
wars, as you imagine.** 

Villon laid down his knife and fork, which he had just 
taken up again. 

"Were any of them bald?** he asked. 

" Oh yes, and with hair as white as mine.** 

" I don't think I should mind the white so much,** said 
Villon. "His was red.** And he had a return of his 
shuddering and tendency to laughter, which he drowned 
with a great draught of wine. " I *m a little put out when 
I think of it,** he went on. "I knew him — damn him! 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 233 

And then the cold gives a man fancies — or the fancies give 
a man cold, I don't know which." 

"Have you any money?" asked the old man. 

" I have one white/' returned the poet, laughing. " I 
got it out of a dead jade's stocking in a porch. She was 
as dead as Caesar, poor wench, and as cold as a church, 
with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is a hard 
world in winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues 
like me." 

"I," said the old man, "am Enguerrand de la Feuil- 
lee, seigneur de Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and 
what may you be ? " 

Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. "I am 
called Francis Villon," he said, "a poor Master of Arts 
of this university. I know some Latin, and a deal of 
vice. I can make chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and 
roundels,^ and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a 
garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. 
I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am 
your lordship's very obsequious servant to command." 

"No servant of mine," said the knight; "my guest for 
this evening, and no more.'^ 

"A very grateful guest," said Villon politely, and he 
drank in dumb show to his entertainer. 

"You are shrewd," began the old man, tapping his 
forehead, "very shrewd; you have learning; you are a 
clerk; and yet you take a small piece of money off a dead 
woman in the street. Is it not a kind of theft?" 

"It is a kind of theft much practised in the wars, my 
lord.'^ 

"The wars are the field of honour," returned the old 
man proudly. " There a man plays his life upon the cast; 
he fights in the name of his lord the king, his Lord God, 
and all their lordships the holy saints and angels." 
^ Various forms of French verse. 



234 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

''Put it/' said Villon, "that I were really a thief, 
should I not play my life also, and against heavier 
odds?'' 

" For gain but not for honour/' 

" Gain ?" repeated Villon with a shrug. " Gain! The 
poor fellow wants supper, and takes it. So does the sol- 
dier in a campaign. Why, what are all these requisi- 
tions we hear so much about? If they are not gain to 
those who take them, they are loss enough to the others. 
The men-at-arms drink by a good fire, while the burgher'^ 
bites his nails to buy them wine and wood. I have seen 
a good many ploughmen swinging on trees about the 
country; ay, I have seen thirty on one elm, and a very 
poor figure they made; and when I asked some one how 
all these came to be hanged, I was told it was because they 
could not scrape together enough crowns to satisfy the 
men-at-arms." 

"These things are a necessity of war, which the low- 
born must endure with constancy. It is true that some 
captains drive overhard; there are spirits in every rank 
not easily moved by pity; and indeed many follow arms 
who are no better than brigands." 

"You see," said the poet, "you cannot separate the 
soldier from the brigand; and what is a thief but an 
isolated brigand with circumspect manners? I steal a 
couple of mutton chops, without so much as disturbing 
people's sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none 
the less wholesomely on what remains. You come up 
blowing gloriously on a trumpet, take away the whole 
sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully into the bargain. I 
have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I am 
a rogue and a dog, and hanging 's too good for me — with 
all my heart; but just ask the farmer which of us he pre- 
fers, just find out which of us he lies awake to curse on. 
cold nights." 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 235 



€i^ 



^Look at us two/^ said his lordship. "I am old, 
strong, and honoured. If I were turned from my house 
to-morrow, hundreds would be proud to shelter me. 
Poor people would go out and pass the night in the streets 
with their children, if I merely hinted that I wished to 
be alone. And I find you up, wandering homeless, and 
picking farthings off dead women by the wayside! I 
fear no man and nothing; I have seen you tremble and 
lose countenance at a word. I wait God's summons con- 
tentedly in my own house, or, if it please the king to call 
me out again, upon the field of battle. You look for the 
gallows; a rough, swift death, without hope or honour. 
Is there no difference between these two?" 

" As far as to the moon," Villon acquiesced. " But if 
I had been born lord of Brisetout, and you had been the 
poor scholar Francis, would the difference have been any 
the less ? Should not I have been warming my knees at 
this charcoal pan, and would not you have been groping 
for farthings in the snow? Should not I have been the 
soldier, and you the thief?" 

"A thief?" cried the old man. "la thief! If you 
understood your words, you would repent them." 

Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimi- 
table impudence. "If your lordship had done me the 
honour to follow my argument!" he said. 

"I do you too much honour in submitting to your 
presence," said the knight. " Learn to curb your tongue 
when you speak with old and honourable men, or some 
one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper fashion." 
And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment, 
struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surrepti- 
tiously refilled his cup, and settled himself more com- 
fortably in the chair, crossing his knees and leaning his 
head upon one hand and the elbow against the back of 
the chair/ He was now replete and warm; and he was 



236 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

in nowise frightened for his host, having gauged him 
as justly as was possible between two such different char- 
acters. The night was far spent, and in a very comfort- 
able fashion after all; and he felt morally certain of a 
safe departure on the morrow. 

"Tell me one thing," said the old man, pausing in his 
walk. "Are you really a thief ?'^ 

"I claim the sacred rights of hospitality," returned 
the poet, "My lord, I am." 

"You are very young," the knight continued. 

"I should never have been so old," replied Villon, 
showing his fingers, "if I had not helped myself with 
these ten talents. They have been my nursing mothers 
and my nursing fathers." 

"You may still repent and change." 

"I repent daily," said the poet. "There are few peo- 
ple more given to repentance than poor Francis. As for 
change, let somebody change my circumstances. A man 
must continue to eat, if it were only that he may continue 
to repent." 

"The change must begin in the heart," returned the 
old man solemnly. 

" My dear lord," answered Villon, " do you really fancy 
that I steal for pleasure ? I hate stealing, like any other 
piece of work or of danger. My teeth chatter when I see 
a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, I must mix in 
society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a 
solitary animal — Cui Deus fceminam tradit} Make me 
king's pan tier — make me abbot of St. Denis; make me 
bailly of the Patatrac; and then I shall be changed indeed. 
But as long as you leave me the poor scholar Francis 
Villon, without a farthing, why, of course, I remain the 



same." 



*The grace of God is all-powerful." 

^ To whom God gave woman. 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 237 

"I should be a heretic to question it/^ said Francis. 
"It has made you lord of Brisetout and bailly of the 
Patatrac; it has given me nothing but the quick wits un- 
der my hat and these ten toes upon my hands. May I 
help myself to wine? I thank you respectfully. By 
God^s grace, you have a very superior vintage.^^ 

The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with his hands 
behind his back. Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in 
his mind about the parallel between thieves and soldiers; 
perhaps Villon had interested him by some cross-thread 
of sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply muddled by 
so much unfamiliar reasoning; but whatever the cause, 
he somehow yearned to convert the young man to a bet- 
ter way of thinking, and could not make up his mind to 
drive him forth again into the street. 

"There is something more than I can understand in 
this,^^ he said at length. "Your mouth is full of subt- 
leties, and the devil has led you very far astray; but the 
devil is only a very w^eak spirit before God's truth, and all 
his subtleties vanish at a word of true honour, like dark- 
ness at morning. Listen to me once more. I learned 
long ago that a gentleman should live chivalrously and 
lovingly to God, and the king, and his lady; and though 
I have seen many strange things done, I have still striven 
to command my ways upon that rule. It is not only 
written in all noble histories, but in every man's heart, 
if he will take care to read. You speak of food and wine, 
and I know very well that hunger is a difficult trial to en- 
dure; but you do not speak of other wants; you say noth- 
ing of honour, of faith to God and other men, of courtesy, 
of love without reproach. It may be that I am not very 
wise — and yet I think I am — but you seem to me like one 
who has lost his way and made a great error in life. You 
are attending to the little wants, and you have totally for- 
gotten the great and only real ones, like a man who should 



238 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

be doctoring toothache on the Judgment Day. For such 
things as honour and love and faith are not only nobler 
than food and drink, but indeed I think we desire them 
more, and suffer more sharply for their absence. I speak 
to you as I think you will most easily understand me. 
Are you not, while careful to fill your belly, disregarding 
another appetite in your heart, which spoils the pleasure 
of your life and keeps you continually wretched?'^ 

Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermonizing. 
'^ You think I have no sense of honour T* he cried. " I 'm 
poor enough, God knows! It ^s hard to see rich people 
with their gloves, and you blowing in your hands. An 
empty belly is a bitter thing, although you speak so 
lightly of it. If you had had as many as I, perhaps you 
would change your tune. Any way I ^m a thief — make 
the most of that — but I ^m not a devil from hell, God strike 
me dead. I would have you to know I Ve an honour 
of my own, as good as yours, though I don't prate about 
it all day long, as if it was a God's miracle to have any. 
It seems quite natural to me; I keep it in its box till it 's 
wanted. Why now, look you here, how long have I been 
in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were 
alone in the house? Look at your gold plate! You 're 
strong, if you like, but you 're old and unarmed, and I 
have my knife. What did I want but a jerk of the elbow 
and here would have been you with the cold steel in your 
bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the 
streets, with an armful of golden cups! Did you suppose 
I hadn't wit enough to see that? And I scorned the ac- 
tion. There are your damned goblets, ^.s safe as in a 
church; there are you, with your heart ticking as good as 
new; and here am I, ready to go out again as poor as I 
came in, with my one white that you threw in my teeth! 
And you think I have no sense of honour — God strike 
me dead!" 



A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 239 

The old man stretched out his right arm. ^' I will tell 
you what you are/' he said. " You are a rogue, my man, 
an impudent and black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I 
have passed an hour with you. Oh! believe me, I feel 
myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at 
my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day 
has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. 
Will you go before, or after?" 

"Which you please," returned the poet, rising. "I 
believe you to be strictly honourable." He thought- 
fully emptied his cup. "I wish I could add you were 
intelligent," he went on, knocking on his head with his 
knuckles. "Age! age! the brains stiff and rheumatic." 

The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect. 
Villon followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle. 

" God pity you," said the lord of Brisetout at the door. 

"Good-bye, papa," returned Villon with a yawn. 
"Many thanks for the cold mutton." 

The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking 
over the white roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning, 
ushered in the day. Villon stood and heartily stretched 
himself in the middle of the road. 

"A very dull old gentleman," he thought. "I wonder 
what his goblets may be worth." 



WILL O' THE MILL^ 



THE PLAIN AND THE STARS 



The Mill where Will lived with his adopted parents 
stood in a falling valley between pinewoods and great 
mountains. Above, hill after hill soared upwards until 
they soared out of the depth of the hardiest timber, and 
stood naked against the sky. Some way up, a long grey 
village lay like a seam or a rag of vapour on a wooded hill- 
side; and when the wind was favourable, the sound of the 
church bells would drop down, thin and silvery, to Will. 
Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and at 
the same time widened out on either hand; and from an 
eminence beside the mill it was possible to see its whole 
length and away beyond it over a wide plain, where the 
river turned and shone, and moved on from city to city 
on its voyage towards the sea. It chanced that over this 
valley there lay a pass into a neighbouring kingdom, so 
that, quiet and rural as it was, the road that ran along be- 
side the river was a high thoroughfare between two splen- 
did and powerful societies. All through the summer, 

^Written in 1877, probably in Edinburgh after a return from 
France, at the time of a sudden burst of activity in story-telling. 
The mountain scenery is a reminiscence of the Brenner Pass over 
which Stevenson journeyed on his return from Italy in 1863 when 
he was only thirteen years old, combined with some memories of 
the valleys of Baden. He told Graham Balfour, afterwards his bi- 
ographer, that it was an experiment in what could be said for a 
theory of life opposite to his own. His own theory is expressed in 
one of his favourite maxims, ^' Acts may be forgiven; not even God 
can forgive the hanger-back. '^ Published in The Cornhill Magazine, 
January, 1878, and afterwards in the volume entitled The Merry 
Men, and Other Tales, 1887. 

240 



WILL O' THE MILL 241 

travelling-carriages came crawling up, or went plunging 
briskly downwards past the mill; and as it happened that 
the other side was very much easier of ascent, the path 
was not much frequented, except by people going in one 
direction; and of all the carriages that Will saw go by, 
five-sixths were plunging briskly downwards and only 
one-sixth crawling up. Much more was this the case 
with foot-passengers. All the light-footed tourists, all the 
pedlars laden with strange wares, were tending down- 
ward like the river that accompanied their path. Nor 
was this all; for when W^ill was yet a child a disastrous 
war arose over a great part of the world. The new^spapers 
were full of defeats and victories, the earth rang with 
cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and for miles 
around the coil of battle terrified good people from their 
labours in the field. Of all this, nothing was heard for a 
long time in the valley; but at last one of the commanders 
pushed an army over the pass by forced marches, and 
for three days horse and foot, cannon and tumbril,^ drum 
and standard, kept pouring downward past the mill. AH 
day the child stood and watched them on their passage — 
the rhythmical stride, the pale, unshaven faces tanned 
about the eyes, the discoloured regimentals and the tat- 
tered flags, filled him with a sense of w^eariness, pity, 
and wonder; and all night long, after he was in bed, he 
could hear the cannon pounding and the feet trampling, 
and the great armament sweeping onw^ard and downward 
past the mill. No one in the valley ever heard the fate of 
the expedition, for they lay out of the way of gossip in 
those troublous times; but Will saw one thing plainly, 
that not a man returned. Whither had they all gone? 
Whither went all the tourists and pedlars with strange 
wares ? whither all the brisk barouches with servants in 
the dicky? whither the water of the stream, ever cours- 

^The two-wheeled cart for carrying tools, etc., which acts as 
tender for a battery. 



242 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ing downward and ever renewed from above ? Even the 
wind blew oftener down the valley, and carried the dead 
leaves along with it in the fall. It seemed like a great 
conspiracy of things animate and inanimate; they all went 
downward, fleetly and gaily downward, and only he, it 
seemed, remained behind, like a stock upon the wayside. 
It sometimes made him glad when he noticed how the 
fishes kept their heads up stream. They, at least, stood 
faithfully by him, while all else were posting downward to 
the unknown world. 

One evening he asked the miller where the river w^ent. 

"It goes down the valley," answered he, "and turns 
a power of mills — six score mills, they say, from here to 
Unterdeck — and it none the wearier after all. And then it 
goes out into the low^lands, and waters the great corn coun- 
try, and runs through a sight of fine cities (so they say) 
where kings live all alone in great palaces, with a sentry 
walking up and down before the door. And it goes under 
bridges with stone men upon them, looking down and 
smiling so curious at the water, and living folks leaning 
their elbows on the wall and looking over too. And then 
it goes on and on, and down through marshes and sands, 
until at last it falls into the sea, where the ships are that 
bring parrots and tobacco from the Indies. Ay, it has 
a long trot before it as it goes singing over our weir, bless 
its heart!'* 

"And what is the sea?'* asked Will. 

"The sea!" cried the miller. "Lord help us all, it is 
the greatest thing God made! That is where all the water 
in the world runs down into a great salt lake. There it 
lies, as flat as my hand and as innocent-like as a child; 
but they do say when the wind blows it gets up into water- 
mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down 
great ships bigger than our mill, and makes such a roar- 
ing that you can hear it miles away upon the land. There 



WILL O' THE MILL 243 

are great fish in it five times bigger than a bull, and one 
old serpent as long as our river and as old as all the world, 
with whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver on her 
head/^ 

Will thought he had never heard anything like this, 
and he kept on asking question after question about the 
world that lay away down the river, with all its perils and 
marvels, until the old miller became quite interested him- 
self, and at last took him by the hand and led him to the 
hill-top that overlooks the valley and the plain. The sun 
was near setting, and hung low down in a cloudless sky. 
Everything was defined and glorified in golden light* 
Will had never seen so great an expanse of country in his 
life; he stood and gazed with all his eyes. He could see 
the cities, and the woods and fields, and the bright 
curves of the river, and far away to where the rim of 
the plain trenched along the shining heavens. An over- 
mastering emotion seized upon the boy, soul and body; 
his heart beat so thickly that he could not breathe; the 
scene swam before his eyes; the sun seemed to wheel 
round and round, and throw off, as it turned, strange 
shapes which disappeared with the rapidity of thought, 
and were succeeded by others. Will covered his face 
with his hands, and burst into a violent fit of tears; and 
the poor miller, sadly disappointed and perplexed, saw 
nothing better for it than to take him up in his arms and 
carry him home in silence. 

From that day forward Will was full of new hopes and 
longings. Something kept tugging at his heart-strings; 
the running water carried his desires along with it as 
he dreamed over its fleeting surface; the wind, as it ran 
over innumerable tree-tops, hailed him with encouraging 
words; branches beckoned downward; the open road, as 
it shouldered round the angles and went turning and van- 
ishing faster and faster down the valley, tortured him 



244 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

with its solicitations. He spent long whiles on the emi- 
nence, looking down the river-shed and abroad on the flat 
lowlands, and watched the clouds that travelled forth 
upon the sluggish wind and trailed their purple shadows 
on the plain; or he would linger by the wayside, and follow 
the carriages with his eyes as they rattled downward by 
the river. It did not matter what it was; everything that 
went that way, w^ere it cloud or carriage, bird or brown 
water in the stream, he felt his heart flow out after it in 
an ecstasy of longing. 

We are told by men of science that all the ventures of 
mariners on the sea, all that counter-marching of tribes 
and races that confounds old history with its dust and 
rumour, sprang from nothing more abstruse than the 
laws of supply and demand, and a certain natural instinct 
for cheap rations. To any one thinking deeply, this will 
seem a dull and pitiful explanation. The tribes that came 
swarming out of the North and East, if they were indeed 
pressed onward from behind by others, were drawn at the 
same time by the magnetic influence of the South and 
West. The fame of other lands had reached them; the 
name of the eternal city rang in their ears; they w^ere not 
colonists, but pilgrims; they travelled towards wine and 
gold and sunshine, but their hearts were set on something 
higher. ' That divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of 
humanity that makes all high achievements and all miser- 
able failure, the same that spread wings with Icarus, the 
same that sent Columbus into the desolate Atlantic, in- 
spired and supported these barbarians on their perilous 
march. There is one legend which profoundly repre- 
sents their spirit, of how a flying party of these wanderers 
encountered a very old man shod with iron. The old 
man asked them whither they were going; and they an- 
swered with one voice: ''To the Eternal City!'' He 
looked upon them gravely. '' I have sought it," he said, 



WILL O' THE MILL 245 

" over the most part of the world. Three such pairs as I 
now carry on my feet have I worn out upon this pilgrim- 
age, and now the fourth is growing slender underneath 
my steps. And all this while I have not found the city.^*^ 
And he turned and went his own way alone, leaving them 
astonished. 

And yet this would scarcely parallel the intensity of 
Will's feeling for the plain. If he could only go far 
enough out there, he felt as if his eyesight would be purged 
and clarified, as if his hearing would grow more delicate, 
and his very breath would come and go with luxury. He 
was transplanted and withering w^here he was; he lay in a 
strange country and was sick for home. Bit by bit, he 
pieced together broken notions of the world below: of the 
river, ever moving and growing until it sailed forth into the 
majestic ocean; of the cities, full of brisk and beautiful 
people, playing fountains, bands of music and marble 
palaces, and lighted up at night from end to end with 
artificial stars of gold; of the great churches, wise univer- 
sities, brave armies, and untold money lying stored in 
vaults; of the high-flying vice that moved in the sunshine, 
and the stealth and swiftness of midnight murder. I have 
said he was sick as if for home: the figure halts. He was 
like some one lying in tw^ilit, formless pre-existence, and 
stretching out his hands lovingly towards many-coloured, 
many-sounding life. It was no wonder he was unhappy, 
he would go and tell the fish: they were made for their 
life, wished for no more than worms and running water, 
and a hole below a falling bank; but he was differently 
designed, full of desires and aspirations, itching at the 
fingers, lusting with the eyes, whom the whole variegated 
world could not satisfy with aspects. The true life, the 
true bright sunshine, lay far out upon the plain. And O! 
to see this sunlight once before he died! to move with a 
jocund spirit in a golden land! to hear the trained singers 



246 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and sweet church bells, and see the holiday gardens! 
^'And O fish!" he would cry, "if you would only turn 
your noses down stream, you could swim so easily into 
the fabled waters and see the vast ships passing over your 
head like clouds, and hear the great water-hills making 
music over you all day long!" But the fish kept looking 
patiently in their own direction, until Will hardly knew 
whether to laugh or cry. 

Hitherto the traffic on the road had passed by Will, like 
something seen in a picture: he had perhaps exchanged 
salutations with a tourist, or caught sight of an old gentle- 
man in a travelling-cap at a carriage window; but for the 
most part it had been a mere symbol, which he contem- 
plated from apart and with something of a superstitious 
feeling. A time came at last when this was to be changed. 
The miller, who was a greedy man in his way, and never 
forewent an opportunity of honest profit, turned the mill- 
house into a little wayside inn, and, several pieces of good 
fortune falling in opportunely, built stables and got the 
position of post-master on the road. It now became 
WilFs duty to wait upon people, as they sat to break their 
fasts in the little arbour at the top of the mill garden; and 
you may be sure that he kept his ears open, and learned 
many new things about the outside world as he brought 
the omelette or the wine. Nay, he would often get into 
conversation with single guests, and by adroit questions 
and polite attention, not only gratify his own curiosity, 
but win the good-will of the travellers. Many compli- 
mented the old couple on their serving-boy; and a pro- 
fessor was eager to take him away with him, and have him 
properly educated in the plain. The miller and his wife 
were mightily astonished and even more pleased. They 
thought it a very good thing that they should have opened 
their inn. "You see," the old man would remark, "he 
has a kind of talent for a publican; he never would have 



WILL O' THE MILL 247 

made anything else!'' And so life wagged on in the val- 
ley, with high satisfaction to all concerned but Will. 
Every carriage that left the inn-door seemed to take a 
part of him away with it; and when people jestingly of- 
fered him a lift, he could with diflBculty command his 
emotion. Night after night he would dream that he 
was awakened by flustered servants, and that a splendid 
equipage waited at the door to carry him down into 
the plain; night after night; until the dream, which had 
seemed all jollity to him at first, began to take on a col- 
our of gravity, and the nocturnal summons and waiting 
equipage occupied a place in his mind as something to 
be both feared and hoped for. 

One day, when Will was about sixteen, a fat young 
man arrived at sunset to pass the night. He was a con- 
tented-looking fellow, with a jolly eye, and carried a knap- 
sack. While dinner was preparing, he sat in the arbour 
to read a book; but as soon as he had begun to observe 
Will, the book was laid aside; he was plainly one of those 
who prefer living people to people made of ink and paper. 
Will, on his part, although he had not been much inter- 
ested in the stranger at first sight, soon began to take a 
great deal of pleasure in his talk, which was full of good 
nature and good sense, and at last conceived a great re- 
spect for his character and wisdom. They sat far into the 
night; and about two in the morning Will opened his 
heart to the young man, and told him how he longed to 
leave the valley and what bright hopes he had connected 
with the cities of the plain. The young man whistled, 
and then broke into a smile. 

''My young friend,'^ he remarked, "you are a very 
curious little fellow to be sure, and wish a great many 
things which you will never get. Why, you would feel 
quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in these 
fairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense, 



248 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and keep breaking their hearts to get up Into the mount- 
ains. And let me tell you, those who go down Into the 
plains are a very short while there before they wish them- 
selves heartily back again. The air Is not so light nor 
so pure; nor Is the sun any brighter. As for the beautiful 
men and women, you would see many of them In rags and 
many of them deformed with horrible disorders; and a 
city Is so hard a place for people who are poor and sensi- 
tive that many choose to die by their own hand.'^ 

"You must think me very simple/^ answered Will. 
"Although I have never been out of this valley, believe 
me, I have used my eyes. I know how one thing lives 
on another; for instance, how the fish hangs In the eddy 
to catch his fellows; and the shepherd, who makes so 
pretty a picture carrying home the lamb. Is only carrying 
it home for dinner. I do not expect to find all things right 
in your cities. That Is not v/hat troubles me; it might 
have been that once upon a time; but although I live here 
always, I have asked many questions and learned a great 
deal In these last years, and certainly enough to cure me 
of my old fancies. But you would not have me die like 
a dog and not see all that Is to be seen, and do all that a 
man can do, let It be good or evil ? you would not have me 
spend all my days between this road here and the river, 
and not so much as make a motion to be up and live my 
life ? — I would rather die out of hand,^' he cried, " than 
linger on as I am dolng.^^ 

"Thousands of people,^^ said the young man, "live 
and die like you, and are none the less happy.^' 

"Ah!'^ said Will, "If there are thousands who would 
like, why should not one of them have my place ?'^ 

It was quite dark; there was a hanging lamp in the 
arbour which lit up the table and the faces of the speak- 
ers; and along the arch, the leaves upon the trellis stood 
out illuminated against the night sky, a pattern of trans- 



WILL O' THE MILL 219 

parent green upon a dusky purple. The fat young m - n 
rose, and, taking Will by the arm, led him out under * 
open heavens. 

"Did you ever look at the stars ?^^ he asked, pointi- 
upwards. 

" Often and of ten,^^ answered Will. 

"And do you know what they are?*' 

"I have fancied many things.^* 

"They are worlds like ours,^* said the young man. 
"Some of them less; many of them a million times greater; 
and some of the least sparkles that you see are not oi] i ^ 
worlds, but whole clusters of worlds turning about eaA 
other in the midst of space. We do not know what ther^- 
may be in any of them; perhaps the answer to all ourd. - 
Acuities or the cure of all our sufferings: and yet we cs i 
never reach them; not all the skill of the craftiest of me i 
can fit out a ship for the nearest of these our neighbour:^; 
nor would the life of the most aged suffice for such a jour- 
ney. When a great battle has been lost or a dear friend 
is dead, when we are hipped or in high spirits, there thev 
are unweariedly shining overhead. We may stand dow 
here, a whole army of us together, and shout until we 
break our hearts, and not a whisper reaches them. W " 
may climb the highest mountain, and we are no neare ' 
them. All we can do is to stand down here in the garden 
and take off our hats; the starshine lights upon our heads, 
and where mine is a little bald, I dare say you can see it 
glisten in the darkness. The mountain and the mouse 
That is like to be all we shall ever have to do witL 
Arcturus or Aldebaran. Can you apply a parable ? " he 
added, laying his hand upon WilFs shoulder. " It is not 
the same thing as a reason, but usually vastly more con- 
vincing.^' 

W^ill hung his head a little, and then raised it once more 
to heaven. The stars seemed to expand and emit a 



)0 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

^1 arper brilliancy; and as he kept turning his eyes higher 
H id higher, they seemed to increase in multitude under 
his gaze. 

" I see/' he said, turning to the young man. " We are 
] ' a rat-trap/' 

''Something of that size. Did you ever see a squir- 
re' turning in a cage ? and another squirrel sitting philo- 
sophically over his nuts? I needn't ask you v/hich of 
them looked more of a fool." 

THE parson's MARJORY 

\fter some years the old people died, both in one win- 
te , very carefully tended by their adopted son, and very 
(. etly mourned when they were gone. People who had 
heard of his roving fancies supposed he would hasten to 
mV the property, and go down the river to push his for- 
ti es. But there was never any sign of such an intention 
Oh the part of Will. On the contrary, he had the inn set 
on a better footing, and hired a couple of servants to assist 
him in carrying it on; and there he settled down, a kind, 
talkative, inscrutable young man, six feet three in his 
stockings, with an iron constitution and a friendly voice. 
He soon began to take rank in the district as a bit of an 
oddity: it was not much to be wondered at from the iSrst, 
for he was always full of notions, and kept calling the 
plainest common-sense in question; but what most raised 
the report upon him was the odd circumstance of his 
courtship with the parson's Marjory. 

i he parson's Marjory was a lass about nineteen, when 
W.ii would be about thirty; well enough looking, and 
much better educated than any other girl in that part of 
the country, as became her parentage. She held her 
head, very high, and had already refused several offers of 
marriage with a grand air, which had got her hard names 



WIIX O^ THE MILL 

among the neighbours. For all that she was a good g iri, 
and one that would have made any man well content d. 

Will had never seen much of her; for although 
church and parsonage were only two miles from his o 
door, he was never known to go there but on Sunda 
It chanced, however, that the parsonage fell into disre- 
pair, and had to be dismantled; and the parson and his 
daughter took lodgings for a month or so, on very mu 1^ 
reduced terms, at WilFs inn. Now, what with the ir ; , 
and the mill, and the old miller's savings, our friend w 
a man of substance; and besides that, he had a name for 
good temper and shrewdness, which make a capital por- 
tion in marriage; and so it was currently gossiped, among 
their ill-wishers, that the parson and his daughter had 
not chosen their temporary lodging with their eyes shi ^ 
Will was about the last man in the world to be cajoled '^r' 
frightened into marriage. You had only to look into hi • 
eyes, limpid and still like pools of water, and yet with a 
sort of clear light that seemed to come from within, arni 
you would understand at once that here was one who 
knew his own mind, and would stand to it immovably. 
Marjory herself was no weakling by her looks, with strong 
steady eyes and a resolute and quiet bearing. It mighr 
be a question whether she was not Will's match in stead- 
fastness, after all, or which of them would rule the xod^st 
in marriage. But Marjory had never given it a thought, 
and accompanied her father with the most unshaken 
innocence and unconcern. 

The season was still so early that WilFs customers were 
few and far between; but the lilacs were already flowering . 
and the weather was so mild that the party took dinne 
under the trellis, with the noise of the river in their ear 
and the woods ringing about them with the songs of birds. 
Will soon began to take a particular pleasure in these din- 
ners. The parson was rather a dull companion, with a 



>52 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

::al)it of dozing at table; but nothing rude or cruel ever 
fell from his lips. And as for the parson's daughter, she 
, suited her surroundings with the best grace imaginable; 
and whatever she said seemed so pat and pretty that Will 
conceived a great idea of her talents. He could see her 
face, as she leaned forward, against a background of 
rising pine w^oods; her eyes shone peaceably; the light lay 
around her hair like a kerchief; something that was hardly 
a smile rippled her pale cheeks, and Will could not con- 
tain himself from gazing on her in an agreeable dismay. 
She looked, even in her quietest moments, so complete in 
herself, and so quick with life down to her finger tips and 
the very skirts of her dress, that the remainder of created 
things became no more than a blot by comparison; and if 
Will glanced away from her to her surroundings, the trees 
looked inanimate and senseless, the clouds hung in 
heaven like dead things, and even the mountain tops were 
disenchanted. The w^hole valley could not compare in 
looks with this one girl. 

Will was always observant in the society of his fellow- 
creatures; but his observation became almost painfully 
eager in the case of Marjory. He listened to all she ut- 
tered, and read her eyes, at the same time, for the un- 
spoken commentary. Many kind, simple, and sincere 
speeches found an echo in his heart. He became con- 
scious of a soul beautifully poised upon itself, nothing 
doubting, nothing desiring, clothed in peace. It was not 
possible to separate her thoughts from her appearance. 
The turn of her wrist, the still sound of her voice, the light 
in her eyes, the lines of her body, fell in tune with her 
i^rave and gentle words, like the accompaniment that sus- 
tains and harmonises the voice of the singer. Her influ- 
ence was one thing, not to be divided or discussed, only 
:o be felt with gratitude and joy. To Will, her presence 
recalled something of his childhood^ and the thought of 



WILL O' THE MILL 253 

her took its place in his mind beside that of dawn, of 
running water, and of the earhest violets and lilacs. It 
is the property of things seen for the first time, or for the 
first time after long, like the flowers in spring, to reawaken 
in us the sharp edge of sense and that impression of mystic 
strangeness which otherwise passes out of life with the 
coming of years; but the sight of a loved face is what re- 
news a man^s character from the fountain upwards. 

One day after dinner Will took a stroll among the firs; 
a grave beatitude possessed him from top to toe, and he 
kept smiling to himself and the landscape as he went. 
The river ran between the stepping-stones with a pretty 
wimple; a bird sang loudly in the wood; the hill-tops 
looked immeasurably high, and as he glanced at them 
from time to time seemed to contemplate his movements 
with a beneficent but awful curiosity. His way took him 
to the eminence which overlooked the plain; and there he 
sat down upon a stone, and fell into deep and pleasant 
thought. The plain lay abroad with its cities and silver 
river; everything was asleep, except a great eddy of birds 
which kept rising and falling and going round and round 
in the blue air. He repeated Marjory's name aloud, and 
the sound of it gratified his ear. He shut his eyes, and 
her image sprang up before him, quietly luminous and 
attended with good thoughts. The river might run for 
ever; the birds fly higher and higher till they touched the 
stars. He saw it was empty bustle after all; for here, 
without stirring a foot, waiting patiently in his own nar- 
row valley, he also had attained the better sunlight. 

The next day Will made a sort of declaration across 
the dinner-table, while the parson was filling his pipe. 

"Miss Marjory,^' he said, "I never knew any one I 
liked so well as you. I am mostly a cold, unkindly sort 
of man; not from want of heart, but out of strangeness in 
my way of -thinking; and people seem far away from me. 



254 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

^Tis as if there were a circle round me, which kept every 
one out but you; I can hear the others talking and laugh- 
ing; but you come quite close. Maybe this is disagree- 
able to you?^^ he asked. 

Marjory made no answer. 

" Speak up, girl,'^ said the parson. 

"Nay, now,^^ returned Will, "I wouldnH press her, 
parson. I feel tongue-tied myself, who am not used to 
it; and she 's a woman, and little more than a child, when 
all is said. But for my part, as far as I can understand 
what people mean by it, I fancy I must be what they call 
in love. I do not wish to be held as committing myself; 
for I may be wrong; but that is how I believe things are 
with me. And if Miss Marjory should feel any otherwise 
on her part, mayhap she would be so kind as shake her 
head." 

Marjory was silent, and gave no sign that she had 
heard. 

"How is that, parson?'^ asked Will. 

"The girl must speak," replied the parson, laying 
down his pipe. "Here 's our neighbour who says he 
loves you, Madge. Do you love him, ay or no?" 

"I think I do," said Marjory faintly. 

"Well, then, that 's all that could be wished!" cried 
Will heartily. And he took her hand across the table, and 
held it a moment in both of his with great satisfaction. 

" You must marry," observed the parson, replacing his 
pipe in his mouth. 

"Is that the right thing to do, think you?" demanded 
Will. 

"It is indispensable," said the parson. 

"Very well," replied the wooer. 

Two or three days passed away with great delight to 
Will, although a bystander might scarce have found it 
out. He continued to take his meals opposite Marjory, 



WILL O' THE MILL . 255 

and to talk with her and gaze upon her in her father's 
presence; but he made no attempt to see her alone, nor 
in any other way changed his conduct towards her from 
w^hat it had been since the beginning. Perhaps the girl 
was a little disappointed, and perhaps not unjustly; and 
yet if it had been enough to be always in the thoughts of 
another person, and so pervade and alter his whole life, 
she might have been thoroughly contented. For she was 
never out of Will's mind for an instant. He sat over the 
stream, and watched the dust of the eddy, and the poised 
fish, and straining weeds; he wandered out alone into the 
purple even, with all the blackbirds piping round him in 
the wood; he rose early in the morning, and saw the sky 
turn from grey to gold, and the light leap upon the hill- 
tops; and all the while he kept wondering if he had never 
seen such things before, or how it was that they should 
look so different now. The sound of his own mill-wheel, 
or of the wind among the trees, confounded and charmed 
his heart. The most enchanting thoughts presented 
themselves unbidden in his mind. He was so happy that 
he could not sleep at night, and so restless that he could 
hardly sit still out of her company. And yet it seemed as 
if he avoided her rather than sought her out. 

One day, as he was coming home from a ramble. Will 
found Marjory in the garden picking flowers, and as he 
came up with her, slackened his pace and continued walk- 
ing by her side. 

"You like flowers?" he said. 

" Indeed I love them dearly," she replied. " Do you ? " 

"Why, no," said he, "not so much. They are a very 
small affair, when all is done. I can fancy people caring 
for them greatly, but not doing as you are just now." 

"How?" she asked, pausing and looking up at him. 

" Plucking them," said he. " They are a deal better off 
where they are, and look a deal prettier, if you go to that." 



256 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

" I wish to have them for my own," she answered, " to 
carry them near my heart, and keep them in my room. 
They tempt me when they grow here; they seem to say, 
'Come and do something with us'; but once I have cut 
them and put them by, the charm is laid, and I can look 
at them with quite an easy heart.'' 

"You wish to possess them," replied Will, "in order 
to think no more about them. It 's a bit like killing the 
goose with the golden eggs. It 's a bit like what I wished 
to do when I was a boy. Because I had a fancy for look- 
ing out over the plain, I wished to go down there — where 
I couldn't look out over it any longer. Was not that fine 
reasoning ? Dear, dear, if they only thought of it, all the 
world would do like me; and you would let your flowers 
alone, just as I stay up here in the mountains." Sud- 
denly he broke oflF sharp. "By the Lord!" he cried. 
And when she asked him what was wrong, he turned the 
question off, and walked away into the house with rather 
a humorous expression of face. 

He was silent at table; and after the night had fallen 
and the stars had come out overhead, he walked up and 
down for hours in the court-yard and garden with an un- 
even pace. There was still a light in the w^indow of 
Marjory's room: one little oblong patch of orange in a 
world of dark blue hills and silver starlight. Will's mind 
ran a great deal on the window; but his thoughts were not 
very lover-like. "There she is in her room," he thought, 
"and there are the stars overhead: — a blessing upon 
both!" Both were good influences in his life; both 
soothed and braced him in his profound contentment 
with the world. And what more should he desire with 
either? The fat young man and his councils were so 
present to his mind that he threw back his head, and, 
putting his hands before his mouth, shouted aloud to the 
populous heavens. Whether from the position of his 



WILL O^ THE MILL 257 

head or the sudden strain of the exertion, he seemed to 
see a momentary shock among the stars, and a diffusion 
of frosty light pass from one to another along the sky. 
At the same instant, a corner of the blind was lifted up 
and lowered again at once. He laughed a loud ho-ho! 
" One and another!" thought Will. "The stars tremble, 
and the blind goes up. Why, before Heaven, what a 
great magician I must be! Now, if I were only a fool, 
should not I be in a pretty way?'' And he went off to 
bed, chuckling to himself: "If I were only a fool!'' 

The next morning, pretty early, he saw her once more 
in the garden, and sought her out. 

" I have been thinking about getting married," he be- 
gan abruptly; "and after having turned it all over, I have 
made up my mind it 's not worth while." 

She turned upon him for a single moment; but his 
radiant, kindly appearance would, under the circum- 
stances, have disconcerted an angel, and she looked down 
again upon the ground in silence. He could see her 
tremble. 

"I hope you don't mind," he went on, a little taken 
aback. " You ought not, I have turned it all over, and 
upon my soul there's nothing in it. We should never be 
one whit nearer than we are just now, and, if I am a wise 
man, nothing like so happy." 

"It is unnecessary to go round about with me," she 
said. "I very well remember that you refused to com- 
mit yourself; and now that I see you were mistaken, and 
in reality have never cared for me, I can only feel sad that 
I have been so far misled." 

"I ask your pardon," said Will stoutly; "you do not 
understand my meaning. As to whether I have ever 
loved you or not, I must leave that to others. But for 
one thing, my feeling is not changed; and for another, 
you may make it your boast that you have made my 



258 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

whole life and character something different from what 
they were. I mean what I say; no less. I do not think 
getting married is worth while. I would rather you 
went on living with your father, so that I could walk over 
and see you once, or maybe twice a week, as people go 
to church, and then we should both be all the happier be- 
tween whiles. That 's my notion. But I ^11 marry you 
if you will,^^ he added. 

"Do you know that you are insulting me?'^ she broke 
out. 

"Not I, Marjory,^' said he; "if there is anything in 
a clear conscience, not I. I offer all my heart's best 
affections; you can take it or want it, though I suspect 
it ^s beyond either your power or mine to change what 
has once been done, and set me fancy-free. I '11 marry 
you, if you like; but I tell you again and again, it 's not 
worth while, and we had best stay friends. Though I 
am a quiet man I have noticed a heap of things in my 
life. Trust in me, and take things as I propose; or, if 
you don't like that, say the word, and I '11 marry you out 
of hand.'* 

There was a considerable pause, and Will, who began 
to feel uneasy, began to grow angry in consequence. 

**It seems you are too proud to say your mind," he 
said. " Believe me, that 's a pity. A clean shrift makes 
simple living. Can a man be more downright or hon- 
ourable to a woman than I have been ? I have said my 
say, and given you your choice. Do you want me to 
marry you? or will you take my friendship, as I think 
best ? or have you had enough of me for good ? Speak 
out for the dear God's sake! You know your father 
told you a girl should speak her mind in these affairs." 

She seemed to recover herself at that, turned without 
a word, walked rapidly through the garden, and disap- 
peared into the house, leaving Will in some confusion 



WILL O' THE MILL 259 

as to the result. He walked up and down the garden, 
whistling softly to himself. Sometimes he stopped and 
contemplated the sky and hill-tops; sometimes he went 
down to the tail of the weir and sat there, looking fool- 
ishly in the water. All this dubiety and perturbation 
was so foreign to his nature and the life which he had res- 
olutely chosen for himself, that he began to regret Mar- 
jory's arrival. "After all,'^ he thought, "I was as happy 
as a man need be. I could come down here and watch 
my fishes all day long if I wanted: I was as settled and 
contented as my old mill.^^ 

Marjory came down to dinner, looking very trim and 
quiet; and no sooner were all three at table than she made 
her father a speech, with her eyes fixed upon her plate, 
but showing no other sign of embarrassment or distress. 

" Father,'' she began, " Mr. Will and I have been talk- 
ing things over. We see that we have each made a mis- 
take about our feelings, and he has agreed, at my request, 
to give up all idea of marriage, and be no more than my 
very good friend, as in the past. You see, there is no 
shadow of a quarrel, and indeed I hope we shall see a 
great deal of him in the future, for his visits will always 
be welcome in our house. Of course, father, you will 
know best, but perhaps we should do better to leave Mr. 
Will's house for the present. I believe, after what has 
passed, we should hardly be agreeable inmates for some 
days." 

Will, who had commanded himself with difficulty from 
the first, broke out upon this into an inarticulate noise, 
and raised one hand with an appearance of real dismay, 
as if he were about to interfere and contradict. But she 
checked him at once, looking up at him with a swift 
glance and an angry flush upon her cheek. 

"You will perhaps have the good grace," she said, 
" to let me explain these matters for myself." 



260 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

Will was put entirely out of countenance by her ex- 
pression and the ring of her voice. He held his peace, 
concluding that there were some things about this girl 
beyond his comprehension, in w^hich he was exactly 
right. 

The poor parson was quite crestfallen. He tried to 
prove that this was no more than a true lovers^ tiff, which 
would pass off before night; and when he was dislodged 
from that position, he went on to argue that where there 
was no quarrel there could be no call for a separation; 
for the good man liked both his entertainment and his 
host. It was curious to see how the girl managed them, 
saying little all the time, and that very quietly, and yet 
twisting them round her finger and insensibly leading 
them wherever she would by feminine tact and general- 
ship. It scarcely seemed to have been her doing — it 
seemed as if things had merely so fallen out — that she 
and her father took their departure that same afternoon 
in a farm-cart, and went farther down the valley, to wait, 
until their own house was ready for them, in another 
hamlet. But Will had been observing closely, and was 
well aware of her dexterity and resolution. When he 
found himself alone he had a great many curious matters 
to turn over in his mind. He was very sad and solitary, 
to begin with. All the interest had gone out of his life; 
and he might look up at the stars as long as he pleased, 
he somehow failed to find support or consolation. And 
then he was in such a turmoil of spirit about Marjory. 
He had been puzzled and irritated at her behaviour, and 
yet he could not keep himself from admiring it. He 
thought he recognised a fine perverse angel in that still 
soul which he had never hitherto suspected; and though 
he saw it was an influence that would fit but ill w^ith 
his own life of artificial calm, he could not keep himself 
from ardently desiring to possess it. Like a man who 



WILL O' THE MILL 261 

has lived among shadows and now meets the sun, he 
was both pained and dehghted. 

As the days went forward he passed from one extreme 
to another; now pluming himself on the strength of his 
determination, now despising his timid and silly caution. 
The former was, perhaps, the true thought of his heart, 
and represented the regular tenor of the man's reflections; 
but the latter burst forth from time to time with an unruly 
violence, and then he would forget all consideration, and 
go up and down his house and garden or walk among the 
fir woods like one w^ho is beside himself with remorse. 
To equable, steady-minded Will this state of matters was 
intolerable; and he determined, at whatever cost, to bring 
it to an end. So, one warm summer afternoon he put on 
his best clothes, took a thorn switch in his hand, and set 
out down the valley by the river. As soon as he had 
taken his determination, he had regained at a bound his 
customary peace of heart, and he enjoyed the bright 
weather and the variety of the scene without any admix- 
ture of alarm or unpleasant eagerness. It was nearly the 
same to him how the matter turned out. If she accepted 
him, he would have to marry her this time, which perhaps 
was all for the best. If she refused him, he would have 
done his utmost, and might follow his own way in the 
future with an untroubled conscience. He hoped, on 
the whole, she would refuse him; and then, again, as 
he saw the brown roof which sheltered her, peeping 
through some willows at an angle of the stream, he was 
half inclined to reverse the wish, and more than half 
ashamed of himself for this infirmity of purpose. 

Marjory seemed glad to see him, and gave him her 
hand without affectation or delay. 

" I have been thinking about this marriage,'^ he began. 

"So have I,'' she answered. "And I respect you 
more and more for a very wise man. You understood 



262 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

me better than I understood myself; and I am now 
quite certain that things are all for the best as they are/' 

"At the same time — *' ventured Will. 

"You must be tired/' she interrupted. "Take a seat 
and let me fetch you a glass of wine. The afternoon is 
so warm; and I wish you not to be displeased with your 
visit. You must come quite often; once a week, if you 
can spare the time; I am always so glad to see my 
friends.'' 

"Oh, very well," thought Will to himself. "It ap- 
pears I was right after all." And he paid a very agree- 
able visit, walked home again in capital spirits, and 
gave himself no further concern about the matter. 

For nearly three years Will and Marjory continued 
on these terms, seeing each other once or twice a week 
without any word of love between them; and for all 
that time I believe Will was nearly as happy as a man 
can be. He rather stinted himself the pleasure of see- 
ing her; and he would often walk half-way over to the 
parsonage, and then back again, as if to whet his appe- 
tite. Indeed there was one corner of the road, whence 
he could see the church-spire wedged into a crevice of 
the valley between sloping fir woods, with a triangular 
snatch of plain by way of background, which he greatly 
affected as a place to sit and moralise in before return- 
ing homewards; and the peasants got so much into the 
habit of finding him there in the twilight that they gave 
it the name of "Will o' the Mill's Corner." 

At the end of the three years Marjory played him a 
sad trick by suddenly marrying somebody else. Will 
kept his countenance bravely, and merely remarked 
that, for as little as he knew of women, he had acted very 
prudently in not marrying her himself three years before. 
She plainly knew very little of her own mind, and, in 
spite of a deceptive manner, was as fickle and flighty as 



WILL O' THE MILL 263 

the rest of them. He had to congratulate himself on 
an escape, he said, and would take a higher opinion of 
his own wisdom in consequence. But at heart, he was 
reasonably displeased, moped a good deal for a month 
or two, and fell away in flesh, to the astonishment of his 
serving-lads. 

It was perhaps a year after this marriage that Will 
was awakened late one night by the sound of a horse 
galloping on the road, followed by precipitate knocking 
at the inn-door. He opened his window and saw a 
farm servant, mounted and holding a led horse by the 
bridle, who told him to make what haste he could and 
go along with him; for Marjory was dying, and had 
sent urgently to fetch him to her bedside. Will was no 
horseman, and made so little speed upon the way that 
the poor young wife was very near her end before he 
arrived. But they had some minutes' talk in private, 
and he was present and wept very bitterly while she 
breathed her last. 

DEATH 

Year after year went away into nothing, with great 
explosions and outcries in the cities on the plain; red 
revolt springing up and being suppressed in blood, battle 
swaying hither and thither, patient astronomers in ob- 
servatory towers picking out and christening new stars, 
plays being performed in lighted theatres, people being 
carried into hospitals on stretchers, and all the usual 
turmoil and agitation of men^s lives in crowded centres. 
Up in WilFs valley only the winds and seasons made an. 
epoch; the fish hung in the swift stream, the birds 
circled overhead, the pine-tops rustled underneath the 
stars, the tall hills stood over all; and Will went to and 
fro, minding his wayside inn, until the snow began to 
thicken on his head. His heart was young and vigorous 



264 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong 
and steady in his wrists. He carried a ruddy stain on 
either cheek, like a ripe apple; he stooped a little, but 
his step was still firm; and his sinewy hands were reached 
out to all men with a friendly pressure. His face was 
covered with those wrinkles which are got in open air, 
and which, rightly looked at, are no more than a sort 
of permanent sun-burning; such wrinkles heighten the 
stupidity of stupid faces; but to a person like Will, with 
his clear eyes and smiling mouth, only give another 
charm by testifying to a simple and easy life. His talk 
was full of wise sayings. He had a taste for other people; 
and other people had a taste for him. When the valley 
was full of tourists in the season, there were merry nights 
in WilFs arbour; and his views, which seemed whimsical 
to his neighbours, were often enough admired by learned 
people out of towns and colleges. Indeed, he had a 
very noble old age, and grew daily better known; so 
that his fame was heard of in the cities of the plain; and 
young men who had been summer travellers spoke to- 
gether in cafes of Will o^ the Mill and his rough phil- 
osophy. Many and many an invitation, you may be 
sure, he had; but nothing could tempt him from his 
upland valley. He would shakb his head and smile 
over his tobacco-pipe with a deal of meaning. *'You 
come too late,^^ he would answer. "I am a dead man 
now: I have lived and died already. Fifty years ago 
you would have brought my heart into my mouth; and 
now you do not even tempt me. But that is the object 
of long living, that man should cease to care about life/* 
And again: "There is only one difference between a 
long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the 
sweets come last." Or once more: "When I was a 
boy, I was a bit puzzled, and hardly knew whether it 
was myself or the world that was curious and worth 



WILL O' THE MILL 265 

lookmg into. Now, I know it is myself, and stick to 
that/' 

He never showed any symptoms of frailty, but kept 
stalwart and firm to the last; but they say he grew less 
talkative towards the end, and would listen to other peo- 
ple by the hour in an amused and sympathetic silence. 
Only, when he did speak, it was more to the point and 
more charged with old experience. He drank a bottle 
of wine gladly; above all, at sunset on the hill-top or 
quite late at night imder the stars in the arbour. The 
sight of something attractive and unattainable seasoned 
his enjoyment, he would say; and he professed he had 
lived long enough to admire a candle all the more when 
he could compare it with a planet. 

One night, in his seventy-second year, he awoke in 
bed, in such uneasiness of body and mind that he arose 
and dressed himself and went out to meditate in the 
arbour. It was pitch dark, without a star; the river 
was swollen, and the wet woods and meadows loaded 
the air with perfume, ^t had thimdered during the day, 
and it promised more thunder for the morrow. A 
murky, stifling night for a man of seventy-two! Whether 
it was the weather or the wakefulness, or some little 
touch of fever in his old limbs, WilFs mind was besieged 
by tumultuous and crying memories. His boyhood, the 
night with the fat young man, the death of his adopted 
parents, the summer days with Marjory, and many of 
those small circumstances, which seem nothing to an- 
other, and are yet the very gist of a man's own life to 
himself — things seen, words heard, looks misconstrued 
— arose from their forgotten corners and usurped his 
attention. The dead themselves were with him, not 
merely taking part in this thin show of memory that de- 
filed before his brain, but revisiting his bodily senses as 
they do in profoimd and vivid dreams. The fat young 



266 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

man leaned his elbows on the table opposite; Marjory 
came and went with an apronful of flowers between the 
garden and the arbour; he could hear the old parson 
knocking out his pipe or blowing his resonant nose. 
The tide of his consciousness ebbed and flowed; he was 
sometimes half asleep and drowned In his recollections 
of the past; and sometimes he was broad awake, won- 
dering at himself. But about the middle of the night 
he was startled by the voice of the dead miller calling 
to him out of the house as he used to do on the arrival 
of custom. The hallucination was so perfect that Will 
sprang from his seat and stood listening for the sum- 
mons to be repeated; and as he listened he became con- 
scious of another noise besides the brawling of the river 
and the ringing In his feverish ears. It was like the stir 
of the horses and the creaking of harness, as though a 
carriage with an impatient team had been brought up 
upon the road before the court-yard gate. At such an 
hour, upon this rough and dangerous pass, the supposi- 
tion was no better than absurd;' and Will dismissed it 
from his mind, and resumed his seat upon the arbour 
chair; and sleep closed over him again like running 
water. He was once again awakened by the dead 
miller's call, thinner and more spectral than before; 
and once again he heard the noise of an equipage upon 
the road. And so thrice and four times, the same 
dream, or the same fancy, presented itself to his senses: 
until at length, smiling to himself as when one humours 
a nervous child, he proceeded towards the gate to set his 
uncertainty at rest. 

From the arbour to the gate was no great distance, 
and yet it took Will some time; it seemed as If the dead 
thickened around him In the court, and crossed his path 
at every step. For, first, he was suddenly surprised by 
an overpowering sweetness of heliotropes; it was as if 



WILL O' THE MILL 267 

his garden had been planted with this flower from end 
to end, and the hot, damp night had drawn forth all 
their perfumes in a breath. Now the heliotrope had 
been Marjory's favourite flower, and since her death not 
one of them had ever been planted in Will's ground. 

"I must be going crazy," he thought. "Poor Mar- 
jory and her heliotropes!" 

And with that he raised his eyes towards the window 
that had once been hers. If he had been bewildered 
before, he was now almost terrified; for there was a 
light in the room; the window was an orange oblong as 
of yore; and the corner of the blind was lifted and let 
fall as on the night when he stood and shouted to the 
stars in his perplexity. The illusion only endured an 
instant; but it left him somewhat unmanned, rubbing 
his eyes and staring at the outline of the house and the 
black night behind it. While he thus stood, and it 
seemed as if he must have stood there quite a long time, 
there came a renewal of the noises on the road: and he 
turned in time to meet a stranger, who was advancing 
to meet him across the court. There was something 
like the outline of a great carriage discernible on the road 
behind the stranger, and, above that, a few black pine- 
tops, like so many plumes. 

"Master Will?" asked the new-comer, in brief mili- 
tary fashion. 

"That same, sir," answered Will. "Can I do any- 
thing to serve you ? " 

"I have heard you much spoken of, Master Will," 
returned the other; "much spoken of, and well. And 
though I have both hands full of business, I wish to 
drink a bottle of wine with you in your arbour. Before 
I go, I shall introduce myself." 

Will led the way to the trellis, and got a lamp lighted 
and a bottle uncorked. He was not altogether unused 



268 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

to such complimentary interviews, and hoped little 
enough from this one, being schooled by many disap- 
pointments. A sort of cloud had settled on his wits 
and prevented him from remembering the strangeness 
of the hour. He moved like a person in his sleep; and 
it seemed as if the lamp caught fire and the. bottle came 
uncorked with the facility of thought. Still, he had 
some curiosity about the appearance of his visitor, and 
tried in vain to turn the light into his face; either he 
handled the lamp clumsily, or there was a dimness over 
his eyes; but he could make out little more than a 
shadow at table with him. He stared and stared at this 
shadow, as he wiped out the glasses, and began to feel 
cold and strange about the heart. The silence weighed 
upon him, for he could hear nothing now, not even the 
river, but the drumming of his own arteries in his ears. 

" Here ^s to you,^^ said the stranger roughly. 

"Here is my service, sir,^^ replied Will, sipping his 
wine, which somehow tasted oddly. 

"I understand you are a very positive fellow,^' pur- 
sued the stranger. 

Will made answer with a smile of some satisfaction 
and a little nod. 

"So am I,^^ continued the other; "and it is the de- 
light of my heart to tramp on people's corns. I will 
have nobody positive but myself; not one. I have 
crossed the whims, in my time, of kings and generals 
and great artists. And what would you say,'' he went 
on, " if I had come up here on purpose to cross yours ? '' 

Will had it on his tongue to make a sharp rejoinder; 
but the politeness of an old innkeeper prevailed; and he 
held his peace and made answer with a civil gesture of 
the hand. 

"I have," said the stranger. "And if I did not hold 
you in a particular esteem, I should make no words 



WILL O' THE MILL 269 

about the matter. It appears you pride yourself on 
staying where you are. You mean to stick by your inn. 
Now I mean you shall come for a turn with me in my 
barouche; and before this bottle's empty, so you shall.'* 

"That would be an odd thing, to be sure,'' replied 
Will, with a chuckle. "Why, sir, I have grown here 
like an old oak tree; the Devil himself could hardly root 
me up; and for all I perceive you are a very entertaining 
old gentleman, I would wager you another bottle you 
lose your pains with me.'' 

The dimness of Will's eyesight had been increasing 
all this while; but he was somehow conscious of a sharp 
and chilling scrutiny which irritated and yet overmas- 
tered him. 

"You need not think," he broke out suddenly, in an 
explosive, febrile manner that startled and alarmed him- 
self, " that I am a stay-at-home, because I fear anything 
under God. God knows I am tired enough of it all; 
and when the time comes for a longer journey than ever 
you dream of, I reckon I shall find myself prepared." 

The stranger emptied his glass and pushed it away 
from him. He looked down for a little, and then, lean- 
ing over the table, tapped Will three times upon the 
forearm with a single finger. "The time has come!" he 
said solemnly. 

An ugly thrill spread from the spot he touched. The 
tones of his voice were dull and startling, and echoed 
strangely in Will's heart. 

"I beg your pardon," he said, with some discom- 
posure. "What do you mean?" 

"Look at me, and you will find your eyesight swim. 
Raise your hand; it is dead-heavy. This is your last 
bottle of wine, Master Will, and your last night upon 
the earth." 

"You are a doctor?" quavered Will. 



270 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

"The best that ever was," replied the other; "for I 
cure both mind and body with the same prescription. T 
take away all pain and I forgive all sins; and where my 
patients have gone wrong in life, I smooth out all com- 
plications and set them free again upon their feet." 

*' I have no need of you," said Will. 

*^A time comes for all men. Master Will," replied the 
doctor, "when the helm is taken out of their hands. 
For you, because you were prudent and quiet, it has 
been long of coming, and you have had long to disci- 
pline yourself for its reception. You have seen what is 
to be seen about your mill; you have sat close all your 
days like a hare in its form; but now that is at an end; 
and," added the doctor, getting on his feet, "you must 
arise and come with me." 

"You are a strange physician," said Will, looking 
steadfastly upon his guest. 

"I am a natural law," he replied, "and people call 
me Death." 

"Why did you not tell me so at first?" cried Will. 
" I have been waiting for you these many years. Give 
me your hand, and welcome." 

" Lean upon my arm," said the stranger, " for already 
your strength abates. Lean on me heavily as you need; 
for though I am old, I am very strong. It is but three 
steps to my carriage, and there all your trouble ends. 
Why, Will," he added, "I have been yearning for you 
as if you were my own son; and of all the men that ever 
I came for in my long days, I have come for you most 
gladly. I am caustic, and sometimes offend people at 
first sight; but I am a good friend at heart to such as 
you. ^ 

"Since Marjory was taken," returned Will, "I de- 
clare before God you were the only friend I had to look 
for." 



WILL O* THE MILL 271 

So the pair went arm in arm across the court-yard. 

One of the servants awoke about this time and heard 
the noise of horses pawing before he dropped asleep 
again; all down the valley that night there was a rush- 
ing as of a smooth and steady wind descending towards 
the plain; and when the world rose next morning, sure 
enough Will o^ the Mill had gone at last upon his travels. 



THE SIRE DE MALETROITS DOOR^ 

Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, 
but he counted himself a grown man, and a very accom- 
phshed cavaher into the bargain. Lads were early 
formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one 
has been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed 
one's man in an honourable fashion, and knows a thing 
or two of strategy and mankind, a certain swagger in the 
gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up his horse 
with due care, and supped with due deliberation; and 
then, in a very agreeable frame of mind, went out to 
pay a visit in the grey of the evening. It was not a very 
wise proceeding on the young man's part. He would 
have done better to remain beside the fire or go decently 
to bed. For the town was full of the troops of Burgundy 
and England under a mixed command; and though 
Denis was there on safe-conduct, his safe-conduct was 
like to serve him little on a chance encounter. 

^ " Invented in France, first told over the fire one evening in Paris, 
and ultimately written at Penzance." It was published in Temple 
Bar, in January, 1878, and reprinted in the volume entitled New 
Arabian Nights^ 1882. The scene is Chateau Landon, a town south- 
east of Paris and not far from the borders of the old duchy of Bur- 
gundy. The time is September, 1429, presumably a little after 
Charles VII and Jeanne d'Arc had made their ill-fated attack upon 
Paris and had marched southward through this very district, The 
English troops of the Duke of Bedford, with the Burgundians, their 
allies, were following, retaking the towns which the French had de- 
serted. Chateau Landori was in the line of march, and Denis de 
Beaulieu must have come into it, with his safe-conduct, from the 
French king's forces. It is to be noted that in 1875, with Sir Walter 
Simpson, whb afterwards accompanied him upon the Inland Voyage, 
Stevenson walked up the Valley of the Loing, and probably passed 
through Chateau Landon. 

272 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 273 

It was September, 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; 
a flighty piping wind, laden with showers, beat about 
the township; and the dead leaves ran riot along the 
streets. Here and there a window was already lighted 
up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over 
supper within, came forth in fits and was swallowed up 
and carried away by the wind. The night fell swiftly; 
the flag of England, fluttering on the spire-top, grew 
ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds — a 
black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden 
chaos of the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and 
began to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree- 
tops in the valley below the town. 

Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking 
at his friend's door; but though he promised himself to 
stay only a little while and make an early return, his wel- 
come was so pleasant, and he found so much to delay 
him, that it was already long past midnight before he 
said good-bye upon the threshold. The wind had fallen 
again in the meanwhile; the night was as black as the 
grave; not a star, nor a glimmer of moonshine, slipped 
through the canopy of cloud. Denis was ill-acquainted 
with the intricate lanes of Chateau Landon; even by 
daylight he had found some trouble in picking his w^ay; 
and in this absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether. 
He was certain of one thing only — to keep mounting 
the hill; for his friend's house lay at the lower end, or 
tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the 
head, under the great church spire. With this clue to go 
upon he stumbled and groped forward, now breathing 
more freely in open places where there was a good slice 
of sky overhead, now feeling along the wall in stifling 
closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be thus 
submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown 
town. The silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The 



274 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles 
the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the 
pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of 
denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in 
the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses 
put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to 
lead him farther from his way. For Denis, who had to 
regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real 
danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he 
went warily and boldly at once, and at every corner 
paused to make an observation. 

He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow 
that he could touch a wall with either hand when it be- 
gan to open out and go sharply downward. Plainly 
this lay no longer in the direction of his inn; but the 
hope of a little more light tempted him forward to rec- 
onnoitre. The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan 
wall,^ which gave an outlook between high houses, as 
out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark and form- 
less several hundred feet below. Denis looked down, 
and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a single 
speck of brightness where the river ran across a weir. 
The weather was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, 
so as to show the outline of the heavier clouds and the 
dark margin of the hills. By the uncertain glimmer, 
the house on his left hand should be a place of some pre- 
tensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and 
turret-tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of 
flying buttresses, projected boldly from the main block; 
and the door was sheltered under a deep porch carved 
with figures and overhung by two long gargoyles. The 
windows of the chapel gleamed through their intricate 
tracery with a light as of many tapers, and threw out the 
buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense black- 
* A wall with jutting turrets. 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 275 

ness against the sky. It was plainly the hotel of some 
great family of the neighbourhood; and as it reminded 
Denis of a town house of his own at Bourges, he stood 
for some time gazing up at it and mentally gauging the 
skill of the architects and the consideration of the two 
families. 

There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the 
lane by which he had reached it; he could only retrace 
his steps, but he had gained some notion of his where- 
abouts, and hoped by this means to hit the main thor- 
ough-fare and speedily regain the inn. He was reckon- 
ing without that chapter of accidents which was to make 
this night memorable above all others in his career; for 
he had not gone back above a hundred yards before he 
saw a light coming to meet him, and heard loud voices 
speaking together in the echoing narrows of the lane. 
It was a party of men-at-arms going the night round 
with torches. Denis assured himself that they had all 
been making free with the wine-bowl, and were in no 
mood to be particular about safe-conducts or the nice- 
ties of chivalrous war. It was as like as not that they 
would kill him like a dog and leave him where he fell. 
The situation was inspiriting but nervous. Their own 
torches would conceal him from sight, he reflected; and 
he hoped that they would drown the noise of his foot- 
steps with their own empty voices. If he were but fleet 
and silent, he might evade their notice altogether. 

Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot 
rolled upon a pebble; he fell against the wall with an 
ejaculation, and his sword rang loudly on the stones. 
Two or three voices demanded who went there — some 
in French, some in English; but Denis made no reply, 
and ran the faster down the lane. Once upon the ter- 
race, he paused to look back. They still kept calling 
after him, and just then began to double the pace in 



276 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

pursuit, with a considerable clank of armour, and great 
tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws 
of the passage. 

Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch. 
There he might escape observation, or — if that were 
too much to expect — was in a capital posture whether 
for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew his sword 
and tried to set his back against the door. To his 
surprise, it yielded behind his weight; and though he, 
turned in a moment, continued to swing back on oiled 
and noiseless hinges, until it stood wide open on a black 
interior. When things fall out opportunely for the per- 
son concerned, he is not apt to be critical about the how 
or why, his own immediate personal convenience seem- 
ing a sufficient reason for the strangest oddities and revo- 
lutions in our sublunary things; and so Denis, without 
a moment^s hesitation, stepped within and partly closed 
the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge. 
Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close it 
altogether; but for some inexplicable reason — perhaps 
by a spring or a weight — the ponderous mass of oak 
whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked to, with a 
formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an 
automatic bar. 

The round, at that very moment, debouched upon the 
terrace and proceeded to summon him with shouts and 
curses. He heard them ferreting in the dark corners; 
the stock of a lance even rattled along the outer surface 
of the door behind which he stood; but these gentlemen 
were in too high a humour to be long delayed, and soon 
made off down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped 
Denis's observation, and passed out of sight and hearing 
along the battlements of the town. 

Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes' 
grace for fear of accidents, and then groped about for 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 277 

some means of opening the door and slipping forth again. 
The inner surface was quite smooth, not a handle, not 
a moulding, not a projection of any sort. He got his 
finger-nails roimd the edges and pulled, but the mass 
was immovable. He shook it, it was as firm as a rock. 
Denis de Beaulieu frowned and gave vent to a little 
noiseless whistle. What ailed the door? he wondered. 
Why was it open? How came it to shut so easily and 
so effectually after him ? There was something obscure 
and underhand about all this, that was little to the 
young man^s fancy. It looked like a snare; and yet 
who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-street and 
in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior? 
And yet — snare or no snare, intentionally or uninten- 
tionally — here he was, prettily trapped; and for the 
life of him he could see no way out of it again. The 
darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear; all 
was silence without, but within and close by he seemed 
to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a little 
stealthy creak — as though many persons were at his 
side, holding themselves quite still, and governing even 
their respiration with the extreme of slyness. The idea 
went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about 
suddenly as if to defend his life. Then, for the first 
time, he became aware of a light about the level of his 
eyes and at some distance in the interior of the house — a 
vertical thread of light, widening towards the bottom, 
such as might escape between two wings of arras over a 
doorway. To see anything was a rehef to Denis; it 
was like a piece of solid ground to a man labouring in a 
morass; his mind seized upon it with avidity; and he 
stood staring at it and trying to piece together some 
logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there 
was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to 
that of this illuminated doorway; and indeed he thought 



278 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

he could make out another thread of light, as fine as a 
needle, and as faint as phosphorescence, which might 
very well be reflected along the polished wood of a 
handrail. Since he had begun to suspect that he was 
not alone, his heart had continued to beat with smother- 
ing violence, and an intolerable desire for action of any 
sort had possessed itself of his spirit. He was in deadly 
peril, he believed. What could be more natural than to 
mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront his 
diflBculty at once? At least he would be dealing with 
something tangible; at least he would be no longer in 
the dark. He stepped slowly forward with outstretched 
hands, until his foot struck the bottom step; then he 
rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to compose 
his expression, lifted the arras, and went in. 

He found himself in a large apartment of polished 
stone. There were three doors; one on each of three 
sides; all similarly curtained with tapestry. The fourth 
side was occupied by two large windows and a great 
stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Male- 
troits. Denis recognised the bearings, and was gratified 
to find himself in such good hands. The room was 
strongly illuminated; but it contained little furniture ex- 
cept a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth was 
innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely 
strewn with rushes clearly many days old. 

On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly fac- 
ing Denis as he entered, sat a little old gentleman in a 
fur tippet. He sat with his legs crossed and his hands 
folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by his elbow on 
a bracket on the wall. His countenance had a strongly 
masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see 
in the bull, the goat, or the domestic boar; something 
equivocal and wheedling, something greedy, brutal, and 
dangerous. The upper lip was inordinately full, as 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 279 

though swollen by a blow or a toothache; and the smile, 
the peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were 
quaintly and almost comically evil in expression. Beau- 
tiful white hair hung straight all round his head, like a 
saint's, and fell in a single curl upon the tippet. His 
beard and moustache were the pink of venerable sweet- 
ness. Age, probably in consequence of inordinate pre- 
cautions, had left no mark upon his hands; and the 
Maletroit hand was famous. It would be difficult to 
imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in 
design; the taper, sensual fingers were like those of one 
of Leonardo's^ women; the fork of the thumb made a 
dimpled protuberance when closed; the nails were per- 
fectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising whiteness. It 
rendered his aspect tenfold more redoubtable, that a 
man with hands like these should keep them devoutly 
folded like a virgin martyr — that a man with so intent 
and startling an expression of face should sit patiently 
on his seat and contemplate people with an unwinking 
stare, like a god, or a god's statue. His quiescence 
seemed ironical and treacherous, it fitted so poorly with 
his looks. 

Such was Alain, Sire de Maletroit, 

Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second 
or two. 

" Pray step in," said the Sire de Maletroit. " I have 
been expecting you all the evening.'^ 

He had not risen, but he accompanied his words with 
a smile and a slight but courteous inclination of the 
head. Partly from the smile, partly from the strange 
musical murmur with which the Sire prefaced his obser- 
vation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through 
his marrow. And what with disgust and honest con- 

* Leonardo da Vinci, famous Italian painter of the time of the 
Renaissance. 



280 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

fusion of mind, he could scarcely get words together in 
reply. 

" I fear/' he said, " that this is a double accident. I 
am not the person you suppose me. It seems you were 
looking for a visit; but for my part, nothing was further 
from my thoughts — nothing could be more contrary to 
my wishes — than this intrusion.'^ 

^^Well, well," replied the old gentleman indulgently, 
^^ here you are, which is the main point. Seat yourself, 
my friend, and put yourself entirely at your ease. We 
shall arrange our little affairs presently." 

Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated 
with some misconception, and he hastened to continue 
his explanations. 

"Your door . . ." he began. 

" About my door ? " asked the other, raising his peaked 
eyebrows. "A little piece of ingenuity." And he 
shrugged his shoulders. "A hospitable fancy! By 
your own account, you were not desirous of making my 
acquaintance. We old people look for such reluctance 
now and then; when it touches our honour, we cast 
about until we find some way of overcoming it. You 
arrive uninvited, but believe me, very welcome." 

"You persist in error, sir," said Denis. "There can 
be no question between you and me. I am a stranger 
in this countryside. My name is Denis, damoiseau de 
Beaulieu. If you see me in your house, it is only " 

"My young friend," interrupted the other, "you will 
permit me to have my own ideas on that subject. They 
probably differ from yours at the present moment," he 
added, with a leer, " but time will show which of us is in 
the right." 

Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He 
seated himself with a shrug, content to wait the upshot; 
and a pause ensued, during which he thought he could 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 281 

distinguish a hurried gabbling as of prayer from behind 
the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there 
seemed to be but one person engaged, sometimes two; 
and the vehemence of the voice, low as it was, seemed 
to indicate either great haste or an agony of spirit. It 
occurred to him that this piece of tapestry covered the 
entrance to the chapel he had noticed from without. 

The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from 
head to foot with a smile, and from time to time emitted 
little noises like a bird or a mouse, which seemed to in- 
dicate a high degree of satisfaction. This state of mat- 
ters became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an 
end to it, remarked politely that the wind had gone down. 

The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so 
prolonged and violent that he became quite red in the 
face. Denis got upon his feet at once, and put on his 
hat with a flourish. 

**Sir,^* he said, "if you are in your wits, you have 
affronted me grossly. If you are out of them, I flatter 
myself I can find better employment for my brains than 
to talk with lunatics. My conscience is clear; you have 
made a fool of me from the first moment; you have re- 
fused to hear my explanations; and now there is no 
power under God will make me stay here any longer; 
and if I cannot make my way out in a more decent 
fashion, I will hack your door in pieces with my sword.^' 

The Sire de Maletroit raised his right hand and 
wagged it at Denis with the fore and little fingers ex- 
tended. 

" My dear nephew,'* he said, " sit down." 

" Nephew !'* retorted Denis, "you lie in your throat;" 
and he snapped his fingers in his face. 

"Sit down, you rogue !^' cried the old gentleman, in 
a sudden, harsh voice, like the barking of a dog. "Do 
you fancy/' he went on, "that when I had made my 



282 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

little contrivance for the door I had stopped short with 
that ? If you prefer to be bound hand and foot till your 
bones ache, rise and try to go away. If you choose to 
remain a free young buck, agreeably conversing with an 
old gentleman — why, sit where you are in peace, and 
God be with you/^ 

"Do you mean I am a prisoner?" demanded Denis. 

" I state the facts," replied the other. " I would rather 
leave the conclusion to yourself." 

Denis sat down again. Externally he managed to 
keep pretty calm, but within, he was now boiling with 
anger, now chilled with apprehension. He no longer 
felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman. 
And if the old gentleman was sane, what, in God^s 
name, had he to look for? What absurd or tragical 
adventure had befallen him? What countenance was 
he to assume? 

While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras 
that overhung the chapel door was raised, and a tall 
priest in his robes came forth and, giving a long, keen 
stare at Denis, said something in an undertone to Sire 
de Maletroit. 

" She is in a better frame of spirit ? " asked the latter. 

"She is more resigned, messire," replied the priest. 

"Now the Lord help her, she is hard to please!" 
sneered the old gentleman. "A likely stripling — not 
ill-born — and of her own choosing, too? Why, what 
more would the jade have?" 

" The situation is not usual for a young damsel," said 
the other, "and somewhat trying to her blushes." 

" She should have thought of that before she began the 
dance! It was none of my choosing, God knows that: 
but since she is in it, by our lady, she shall carry it to 
the end." And then addressing Denis, " Monsieur de 
Beaulieu," he asked, "may I present you to my niece? 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 283 

She has been waiting your arrival, I may say, with even 
greater impatience than myself/^ 

Denis had resigned himself with a good grace — all 
he desired was to know the worst of it as speedily as 
possible; so he rose at once, and bowed in acquiescence. 
The Sire de Mal^troit followed his example and limped, 
with the assistance of the chaplain's arm, towards the 
chapel door. The priest pulled aside the arras, and all 
three entered. The building had considerable architec- 
tural pretensions. A light groining sprang from six 
stout columns, and hung down in two rich pendants 
from the centre of the vault. The place terminated be- 
hind the altar in a round end, embossed and honey- 
combed with a superfluity of ornament in relief, and 
pierced by many little windows shaped like stars, tre- 
foils, or wheels. These windows were imperfectly glazed, 
so that the night air circulated freely in the chapel. 
The tapers, of which there must have been half a hun- 
dred burning on the altar, were unmercifully blown 
about; and the light went through many different phases 
of brilliancy and semi-eclipse. On the steps in front of 
the altar knelt a young girl richly attired as a bride. A 
chill settled over Denis as he observed her costume; he 
fought with desperate energy against the conclusion that 
was being thrust upon his mind; it could not — -it should 
not — be as he feared. 

" Blanche,'' said the Sire, in his most flute-like tones, 
"I have brought a friend to see you, my little girl; turn 
round and give him your pretty hand. It is good to be 
devout; but it is necessary to be polite, my niece." 

The girl rose to her feet and turned toward the new- 
comers. She moved all of a piece; and shame and ex- 
haustion were expressed in every line of her fresh young 
body; and she held her head down and kept her eyes 
upon the pavement, as she. came slowly forward. In. 



284 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the course of her advance, her eyes fell upon Denis de 
Beaulieu's feet — feet of which he was justly vain, be it 
remarked, and wore in the most elegant accoutrement 
even while travelling. She paused — started, as if his 
yellow boots had conveyed some shocking meaning — 
and glanced suddenly up into the wearer^s countenance. 
Their eyes met; shame gave place to horror and terror 
in her looks; the blood left her lips; with a piercing 
scream she covered her face with her hands and sank 
upon the chapel floor. 

"That is not the man!^^ she cried. "My uncle, that 
is not the man!" 

The Sire de Maletroit chirped agreeably, " Of course 
not," he said. " I expected as much. It was so unfor- 
tunate you could not remember his name." 

"Indeed," she cried, "indeed, I have never seen this 
person till this moment — I have never so much as set 
eyes upon him — I never wish to see him again. Sir," 
she said, turning to Denis, " if you are a gentleman, you 
will bear me out. Have I ever seen you — have you 
ever seen me — before this accursed hour?" 

" To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure," 
answered the young man. "This is the first time, mes- 
sire, that I have met with your engaging niece." 

The 'old gentleman shrugged his shoulders. 

"I am distressed to hear it," he said. "But it is 
never too late to begin. I had little more acquaintance 
with my own late lady ere I married her; which proves," 
he added, with a grimace, "that these impromptu mar- 
riages may often produce an excellent understanding in 
the long run. As the bridegroom is to have a voice in 
the matter, I will give him two hours to make up for 
lost time before we proceed with the ceremony." And 
he turned toward the door, followed by the clergy- 
man. 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 285 

The girl was on her feet in a moment. "My uncle, 
you cannot be in earnest/' she said. "I declare before 
God I will stab myself rather than be forced on that 
young man. The heart rises at it; God forbids such 
marriages; you dishonour your white hair. Oh, my 
uncle, pity me! There is not a woman in all the world 
but would prefer death to such a nuptial. Is it possi- 
ble,'* she added, faltering — "is it possible that you do 
not believe me — that you still think this" — and she 
pointed at Denis with a tremor of anger and contempt 
— "that you still think this to be the man?'' 

"Frankly," said the old gentleman, pausing on the 
threshold, " I do. But let me explain to you once for 
all, Blanche de Maletroit, my way of thinking about this 
affair. When you took it into your head to dishonour 
my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and 
war, for more than three-score years, you forfeited not 
only the right to question my designs, but that of look- 
ing me in the face. If your father had been alive, he 
would have spat on you and turned you out of doors. 
His was the hand of iron. You may bless your God you 
have only to deal with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. 
It was my duty to get you married without delay. Out 
of pure good-will, I have tried to find your own gallant 
for you. And I believe I have succeeded. But before 
God and all the holy angels, Blanche de Maletroit, if I 
have not, I care not one jack-straw. So let me recom- 
mend you to be polite to our young friend; for upon my 
word, your next groom may be less appetising." 

And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his 
heels; and the arras fell behind the pair. 

The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes. 

"And i\bat, sir," she demanded, "may be the mean- 
ing of all tl'is?" 

"God knows," returned Denis, gloomily. "I am a 



286 SELECTIONS, FROM STEVENSON 

prisoner in this house, which seems full of mad people. 
More I know not; and nothing do I understand/' 

"And pray how came you here?'' she asked. 

He told her as briefly as he could. '' For the rest/' he 
added, " perhaps you will follow my example, and tell me 
the answer to all these riddles, and what, in God's name, 
is like to be the end of it." 

She stood silent for a little, and he could see her lips 
tremble and her tearless eyes burn with a feverish lustre. 
Then she pressed her forehead in both hands. 

"Alas, how my head aches!" she said wearily— "to 
say nothing of my poor heart! But it is due to you to 
know my story, unmaidenly as it must seem. I am 
called Blanche de Maletroit; I have been without 
father or mother for — oh! for as long as I can recollect, 
and indeed I have been most unhappy all my life. Three 
months ago a young captain began to stand near me 
every day in church. I could see that I pleased him; I 
am much to blame, but I was so glad that any one should 
love me; and when he passed me a letter, I took it home 
with me and read it with great pleasure. Since that 
time he has written many. He was so anxious to speak 
with me, poor fellow! and kept asking me to leave the 
door open some evening that we might have two words 
upon the stair. For he knew how much my uncle 
trusted me." She gave something like a sob at that, 
and it was a moment before she could go on. "My 
uncle is a hard man, but he is very shrewd," she said at 
last. " He has performed many feats in war, and was a 
great person at court, and much trusted by Queen Isa- 
beau in old days. How he came to suspect me I cannot 
tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledg'e; 
and this morning, as we came from mass took my 

hand into his, forced it open, and read m Mie billet, 
walking by my side all the while. When h iiished, he 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 287 

gave it back to me with great politeness. It contained 
another request to have the door left open; and this has 
been the ruin of us alL My uncle kept me strictly in my 
room until evening, and then ordered me to dress my- 
self as you see me — a hard mockery for a young girl, do 
you not think so ? I suppose, v^hen he could not prevail 
with me to tell him the young captain^s name, he must 
have laid a trap for him: into which, alas! you have 
fallen in the anger of God. I looked for much con- 
fusion; for how could I tell whether he was willing to 
take me for his wife on these sharp terms? He might 
have been trifling with me from the first; or I might have 
made myself too cheap in his eyes. But truly I had not 
looked for such a shameful punishment as this! I could 
not think that God would let a girl be so disgraced be- 
fore a young man. And now I tell you all; and I can 
scarcely hope that you will not despise me.^^ 

Denis made her a respectful inclination. 

"Madam,^^ he said, "you have honoured me by your 
confidence. It remains for me to prove that I am not 
unworthy of the honour. Is Messire de Maletroit at 
hand?" 

" I believe he is writing in the salle without," she an- 
swered. 

"May I lead you thither, madam?" asked Denis, of- 
fering his hand with his most courtly bearing. 

She accepted it; and the pair passed out of the chapel, 
Blanche in a very drooping and shamefast condition, 
but Denis strutting and ruffling in the consciousness of 
a mission, and the boyish certainty of accomplishing it 
with honour. 

The Sire de Maletroit rose to meet them with an ironi- 
cal obeisance. 

"Sir," said Denis, with the grandest possible air, "I 
believe I am to have some say in the matter of this mar- 



288 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

riage; and let me tell you at once, I will be no party to 
forcing the inclination of this young lady. Had it been 
freely offered to me, I should have been proud to accept 
her hand, for I perceive she is as good as she is beautiful; 
but as things are, I have now the honour, messire, of 
refusing/' 

Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes; but 
the old gentleman only smiled and smiled, until his smile 
grew positively sickening to Denis. 

^'I am afraid," he said, "Monsieur de Beaulieu, that 
you do not perfectly understand the choice I have offered 
you. Follow me, I beseech you, to this window." And 
he led the way to one of the large windows which stood 
open on the night. " You observe," he went on, " there 
is an iron ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through 
that, a very efficacious rope. Now, mark my words: if 
you should find your disinclination to my niece's person 
insurmountable, I shall have you hanged out of this 
window before sunrise. I shall only proceed to such an 
extremity with the greatest regret, you may believe me. 
For it is not at all your death that I desire, but my 
niece's establishment in life. At the same time, it must 
come to that if you prove obstinate. Your family. 
Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in its way; but if you 
sprang from Charlemagne, you should not refuse the 
hand of a Maletroit with impunity — not if she had been 
as common as the Paris road — not if she were as hideous 
as the gargoyle over my door. Neither my niece nor 
you, nor my own private feelings, move me at all in this 
matter. The honour of my house has been compromised ; 
I believe you to be the guilty person, at least you are now 
in the secret; and you can hardly wonder if I request 
you to wipe out the stain. If you will not, your blood 
be on your own head! It will be no great satisfaction 
to me to have your interesting relics kicking their heels 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 289 

in the breeze below my windows, but half a loaf is better 
than no bread, and if I cannot cure the dishonour, I 
shall at least stop the scandal/^ 

There was a pause. 

"I believe there are other ways of settling such im- 
broglios among gentlemen,^^ said Denis. " You wear a 
sword, and I hear you have used it with distinction/' 

The Sire de Maletroit made a signal to the chaplain, 
who crossed the room with long silent strides and raised 
the arras over the third of the three doors. It was only 
a moment before he let it fall again; but Denis had time 
to see a dusky passage full of armed men. 

" When I was a little younger, I should have been de- 
lighted to honour you. Monsieur de Beaulieu," said Sire 
Alain; "but I am now too old. Faithful retainers are 
the sinews of age, and I must employ the strength I have. 
This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a man 
grows up in years; but with a little patience, even this 
becomes habitual. You and the lady seem to prefer the 
salle for what remains of your two hours; and as I have 
no desire to cross your preference, I shall resign it to 
your use with all the pleasure in the world. No haste T^ 
he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous 
look come into Denis de Beaulieu's face. "If your 
mind revolt against hanging, it will be time enough two 
hours hence to throw yourself out of the window or upon 
the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life are always 
two hours. A great many things may turn up in even 
as little a while as that. And, besides, if I understand 
her appearance, my niece has something to say to you. 
You will not disfigure your last hours by a want of 
politeness to a lady?'' 

Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an im- 
ploring gesture. 

It is likely that the old gentleman was hugely pleased 



290 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

at this symptom of an understanding; for he smiled on 
both, and added sweetly: "If you will give me your 
word of honour, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my re- 
turn at the end of the two hours before attempting any- 
thing desperate, I shall withdraw my retainers, and let 
you speak in greater privacy with mademoiselle/^ 

Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to be- 
seech him to agree. 

" I give you my word of honour,'^ he said. 

Messire de Maletroit bowed, and proceeded to Innp 
about the apartment, clearing his throat the while with 
that odd musical chirp which had already grown so 
irritating in the ears of Denis de Beaulieu. He first 
possessed himself of some papers which lay upon the 
table; then he went to the mouth of the passage and 
appeared to give an order to the men behind the arras; 
and lastly he hobbled out through the door by which 
Denis had come in, turning upon the threshold to address 
a last smiling bow to the young couple, and followed by 
the chaplain with a hand-lamp. 

No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced 
towards Denis with her hands extended. Her face was 
flushed and excited, and her eyes shone with tears. 

"You shall not die!'* she cried, "you shall marry me 
after all." 

"You seem to think, madam/^ replied Denis, '*that I 
stand much in fear of death." 

" Oh, no, no," she said, " I see you are no poltroon. 
It is for my own sake — I could not bear to have you 
slain for such a scruple." 

"I am afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate 
the difficulty, madam. What you may be too generous 
to refuse, I may be too proud to accept. In a moment 
of noble feeling towards me, you forgot what you per- 
haps owe to others." 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT^S DOOR 291 

He had the decency to keep his eyes on the floor as 
he said this, and after he had finished, so as not to spy 
upon her confusion. She stood silent for a moment, 
then walked suddenly away, and falling on her uncle's 
chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was in the acme 
of embarrassment. He looked round, as if to seek for 
inspiration, and seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for 
something to do. There he sat playing with the guard 
of his rapier, and wishing himself dead a thousand times 
over, and buried in the nastiest kitchen-heap in France. 
His eyes wandered round the apartment, but found 
nothing to arrest them. There were such wide spaces 
between the furniture, the light fell so badly and cheer- 
lessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so coldly 
through the windows, that he thought he had never seen 
a church so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular 
sobs of Blanche de Maletroit measured out the time like 
the ticking of a clock. He read the device upon the 
shield over and over again, until his eyes became ob- 
scured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imag- 
ined they were swarming with horrible animals; and 
every now and again he awoke with a start, to remember 
that his last two hours were running, and death was on 
the march. 

Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his 
glance settle on the girl herself. Her face was bowed 
forward and covered with her hands, and she was shaken 
at intervals by the convulsive hiccup of grief. Even 
thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so 
plump and yet so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the 
most beautiful hair, Denis thought, in the whole world 
of womankind. Her hands were like her uncle's; but 
they were more in place at the end of her young arms, 
and looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remem- 
bered how her blue eyes had shone upon him, full of 



292 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

anger, pity, and innocence. And the more he dwelt on 
her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the more 
deeply was he smitten with penitence at her continued 
tears. Now he felt that no man could have the courage 
to leave a world which contained so beautiful a creature; 
and now he would have given forty minutes of his last 
hour to have unsaid his cruel speech. 

Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose 
to their ears from the dark valley below the windows. 
And this shattering noise in the silence of all around was 
like a light in a dark place, and shook them both out of 
their reflections. 

"Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, look- 
ing up. 

"Madam,** replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if 
I have said anything to wound you, believe me, it was 
for your own sake and not for mine.** 

She thanked him with a tearful look. 

"I feel your position cruelly,** he went on. "The 
world has been bitter hard on you. Your uncle is a 
disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam, there is no 
young gentleman in all France but would be glad of my 
opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service.** 

" I know already that you can be very brave and gen- 
erous,** she answered. "What I want to know is 
whether I can serve you — now or afterwards,** she added, 
with a quaver. 

"Most certainly,** he answered with a smile. "Let 
me sit beside you as if I were a friend, instead of a foolish 
intruder; try to forget how awkwardly we are placed to 
one another; make my last moments go pleasantly; and 
you will do me the chief service possible.** 

"You are very gallant,** she added, with a yet deeper 
sadness . . . "very gallant . . . and it somehow pains 
me. But draw nearer, if you please; and if you find 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 293 

anything to say to me, you will at least make certain of 
a very friendly listener. Ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu/' 
she broke forth — " ah ! Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can 
I look you in the face?*' And she fell to weeping again 
with a renewed eflfusion, 

" Madam/' said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, 
" reflect on the little time I have before me, and the great 
bitterness into which I am cast by the sight of your dis- 
tress. Spare me, in my last moments, the spectacle of 
what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my life." 

"I am very selfish,'^ answered Blanche. "I will be 
braver. Monsieur de Beaulieu, for your sake. But think 
if I can do you no kindness in the future — if you have 
no friends to whom I could carry your adieux. Charge 
me as heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, 
by so little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it 
in my power to do something more for you than weep.'* 

" My mother is married again, and has a young family 
to care for. My brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; 
and if I am not in error, that will content him amply for 
my death. Life is a little vapour that passeth away, as 
we are told by those in holy orders. When a man is in 
a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems 
to himself to make a very important figure in the world. 
His horse whinnies to him; the trumpets blow and the 
girls look out of window as he rides into town before his 
company; he receives many assurances of trust and re- 
gard — sometimes by express in a letter — sometimes face 
to face, with persons of great consequence falling on his 
neck. It is not wonderful if his head is turned for a 
time. But once he is dead, were he as brave as Hercules 
or as wise as Solomon, he is soon forgotten. It is not 
ten years since my father fell, with many other knights 
around him, in a very fierce encounter, and I do not think 
that any one of them, nor so much as the name of the 



294 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

fight, is now remembered. No, no, madam, the nearer 
you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty 
corner, where a man gets into his tomb and has the door 
shut after him till the judgment day. I have few friends 
just now, and once I am dead I shall have none." 

"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you 
forget Blanche de Maletroit." 

"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are 
pleased to estimate a little service far beyond its worth." 

"It is not that," she answered. "You mistake me if 
you think I am easily touched by my own concerns. I 
say so, because you are the noblest man I have ever met; 
because I recognise in you a spirit that would have made 
even a common person famous in the land." 

"And yet here I die in a mousetrap — with no more 
noise about it than my own squeaking," answered he. 

A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for 
a little while. Then a light came into her eyes, and with 
a smile she spoke again. 

"I cannot have my champion think meanly of him- 
self. Anyone who gives his life for another will be met 
in Paradise by all the heralds and angels of the Lord 
God, And you have no such cause to hang your head. 
For . . . pray, do you think me beautiful?" she asked, 
with a deep flush. 

"Indeed, madam, I do," he said. 

" I am glad of that," she answered heartily. " Do you 
think there are many men in France who have been 
asked in marriage by a beautiful maiden — with her own 
lips — and who have refused her to her face? I know 
you men would half despise such a triumph; but believe 
me, we women know more of what is precious in love. 
There is nothing that should set a person higher in his 
own esteem; and we women would prize nothing more 
dearly." 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 295 

"You are very good/^ he said; "but you cannot make 
me forget that I was asked in pity and not for love/^ 

"I am not so sure of that/' she repHed, holding down 
her head. " Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. 
I know how you must despise me; I feel you are right to 
do so; I am too poor a creature to occupy one thought of 
your mind, although, alas! you must die for me this 
morning. But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, 
and indeed, it was because I respected and admired you, 
and loved you with my whole soul, from the very mo- 
ment that you took my part against my uncle. If you 
had seen yourself, and how noble you looked, you would 
pity rather than despise me. And now,'' she went on, 
hurriedly checking him with her hand, " although I have 
laid aside all reserve and told you so much, remember 
that I know your sentiments towards me already. I 
would not, believe me, being nobly born, weary you with 
importunities into consent. I too have a pride of my 
own: and I declare before the holy mother of God, if 
you should now go back from your word already given] 
I would no more marry you than I would marry my 
uncle's groom." 

Denis smiled a little bitterly. 

"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little 
pride." 

She made no answer, although she probably had her 
own thoughts. 

"Come hither to the window," he said with a sigh. 
"Here is the dawn." 

And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The 
hollow of the sky was full of essential daylight, colour- 
less and clean; and the valley underneath was flooded 
with a grey reflection. A few thin vapours clung in the 
coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of the 
river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of still- 



296 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ness, which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began 
once more to crow among the steadings. Perhaps the 
same fellow who had made so horrid a clangour in the 
darkness not half an hour before, now sent up the mer- 
riest cheer to greet the coming day. A little wind went 
bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath 
the windows. And still the daylight kept flooding in- 
sensibly out of the east, which was soon to grow incan- 
descent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising 
sun. 

Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. 
He had taken her hand, and retained it in his almost 
unconsciously. 

"Has the day begun already ?^^ she said; and then, 
illogically enough: "the night has been so long! Alas! 
what shall we say to my uncle when he returns?'^ 

"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her 
fingers in his. 

She was silent. 

" Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate 
utterance, "you have seen whether I fear death. You 
must know well enough that I would as gladly leap out 
of that window into the empty air as to lay a finger on 
you without your free and full consent. But if you care 
for me at all, do not let me lose my life in a misappre- 
hension; for I love you better than the whole world; 
and though I will die for you blithely, it would be like all 
the joys of Paradise to live on and spend my life in your 
service." 

As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in 
the interior of the house; and a clatter of armour in the 
corridor showed that the retainers were returning to their 
post, and the two hours were at an end. 

" After all that you have heard ? " she whispered, lean- 
ing towards him with her lips and eyes. 



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR 297 



<<i 



^I have heard nothing/^ he replied. 

"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdi- 
vers/' she said in his ear. 

"I did not hear it/' he answered, taking her supple 
body in his arms, and covering her wet face with kisses. 

A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed 
by a beautiful chuckle, and the voice of Messire de 
Maletroit wished his new nephew a good morning. 



THE MERRY MEN^ 
CHAPTER I 

EILEAN AROS 

-It was a beautiful morning in the late July when I set 
forth on foot for the last time for Aros. A boat had put 
me ashore the night before at Grisapol; I had such 
breakfast as the little inn afforded, and, leaving all my 
baggage till I had an occasion to come round for it by 
sea, struck right across the promontory with a cheerful 
heart. 

I was far from being a native of these parts, springing, 
as I did, from an unmixed lowland stock. But an uncle 
of mine, Gordon Darnaway, after a poor, rough youth, 
and some years at sea, had married a young wife in the 

^ Written in 1881, at Pitlochry in the Scottish Highlands, where 
Stevenson and his wife were staying with his parents in the year 
after his return from California, and published in The Cornhill 
Magazine, June, July, 1882. The scene is Earraid (Aros), an island 
off the north-west coast of Scotland, where he had spent some time 
in 1870 before beginning a tour of the Western Islands in the course 
of an attempt to follow his father in the profession of civil engineer- 
ing. Grisapol is Mull, a larger island of the inner Hebrides. Ben 
Kyaw is Ben More, the highest summit of this island. It was upon 
Earraid that David Balfour was cast away, and it was upon Earraid 
that he nearly starved, as is recounted in Chapters XIII and XIV 
of Stevenson's Kidnapped. In a letter to W. E. Henley (July, 1881), 
Stevenson called this tale "my favourite work," saying later, "It's 
really a story of wrecks as they appear to dwellers on the coast." 
Graham Balfour, his biographer, reports another remark about this 
story: "You may take a certain atmosphere," said Stevenson, "and 
get actions and persons to realise it. I'll give you an example — 
The Merry Men. There I began with the feeling of one of those 
islands on the west coast of Scotland, and I gradually developed the 
story to express the sentiment with which that coast affected me." 
Republished in The Merry Men, and other TaleSj 1887. 

298 



THE MERRY MEN 299 

islands; Mary Maclean she was called, the last of her 
family; and when she died in giving birth to a daughter, 
Aros, the sea-girt farm, had remained in his possession. 
It brought him in nothing but the means of life, as I was 
well aware; but he was a man whom ill-fortune had pur- 
sued; he feared, cumbered as he was with the young 
child, to make a fresh adventure upon life; and re- 
mained in Aros, biting his nails at destiny. Years passed 
over his head in that isolation, and brought neither help 
nor contentment. Meantime our family was dying out 
in the lowlands; there is little luck for any of that race; 
and perhaps my father was the luckiest of all, for not 
only was he one of the last to die, but he left a son to his 
name and a little money to support it. I was a student 
of Edinburgh University, living well enough at my own 
charges, but without kith or kin; when some news of 
me found its way to Uncle Gordon on the Ross of Gris- 
apol; and he, as he was a man who held blood thicker 
than water, wrote to me the day he heard of my existence, 
and taught me to count Aros as my home. Thus it was 
that I came to spend my vacations in that part of the 
country, so far from all society and comfort, between the 
codfish and the moorcocks; and thus it was that now, 
when I had done with my classes, I was returning thither 
with so light a heart that July day. 

The Ross, as we call it, is a promontory neither wide 
nor high, but as rough as God made it to this day; the 
deep sea on either hand of it, full of rugged isles and 
reefs most perilous to seamen — all overlooked from the 
eastward by some very high cliffs and the great peak of 
Ben Kyaw. The Mountain of the Mist, they say the 
words signify in the Gaelic tongue; and it is well named. 
For that hill-top, which is more than three thousand 
feet in height, catches all the clouds that come blowing 
from the seaward; and, indeed, I used often to think that 



300 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

it must make them for itself; since when all heaven was 
clear to the sea level, there would ever be a streamer on 
Ben Kyaw. It brought water, too, and was mossy ^ to 
the top in consequence. I have seen us sitting in broad 
sunshine on the Ross, and the rain falling black like crape 
upon the mountain. But the wetness of it made it often 
appear more beautiful to my eyes; for when the sun 
struck upon the hill sides, there were many wet rocks and 
watercourses that shone like jewels even as far as Aros, 
fifteen miles away. 

The road that I followed was a cattle-track. It 
twisted so as nearly to double the length of my journey; 
it went over rough boulders so that a man had to leap 
from one to another, and through soft bottoms where 
the moss came nearly to the knee. There was no culti- 
vation anywhere, and not one house in the ten miles 
from Grisapol to Aros. Houses of course there were — 
three at least; but they lay so far on the one side or the 
other that no stranger could have found them from the 
track. A large part of the Ross is covered with big 
granite rocks, some of them larger than a two-roomed 
house, one beside another, with fern and deep heather 
in between them where the vipers breed. Anyway the 
wind was, it was always sea air, as salt as on a ship; the 
gulls were as free as moorfowl over all the Ross; and 
whenever the way rose a little, your eye would kindle 
with the brightness of the sea. From the very midst of 
the land, on a day of wind and a high spring, I have 
heard the Roost roaring like a battle where it runs by 
Aros, and the great and fearful voices of the breakers 
that we call the Merry Men. 

Aros itself — Aros Jay, I have heard the natives call it, 
and they say it means the House of God — Aros itself was 
not properly a piece of the Ross, nor was it quite an islet. 

* Boggy. 



THE MERRY MEN 301 

It formed the south-west corner of the land, fitted close 
to it, and was in one place only separated from the coast 
by a little gut of the sea, not forty feet across the narrowest. 
When the tide was full, this was clear and still, like a pool 
on a land river; only there was a difference in the weeds 
and fishes, and the water itself was green instead of 
brown; but when the tide went out, in the bottom of the 
ebb, there was a day or two in every month when you 
could pass dryshod from Aros to the mainland. There 
was some good pasture, where my uncle fed the sheep he 
lived on; perhaps the feed was better because the ground 
rose higher on the islet than the main level of the Ross, 
but this I am not skilled enough to settle. The house 
was a good one for that country, two storeys high. It 
looked westward over a bay, with a pier hard by for a 
boat, and from the door you could watch the vapours 
blowing on Ben Kyaw. 

On all this part of the coast, and especially near Aros, 
these great granite rocks that I have spoken of go down 
together in troops into the sea, like cattle on a summer's 
day. There they stand, for all the world like their neigh- 
bours ashore; only the salt water sobbing between them 
instead of the quiet earth, and clots of sea-pink bloom- 
ing on their sides instead of heather; and the great sea 
conger to wreathe about the base of them instead of the 
poisonous viper of the land. On calm days you can go 
wandering between them in a boat for hours, echoes 
following you about the labyrinth; but when the sea is up. 
Heaven help the man that hears that cauldron boiling. 

Off the south-west end of Aros these blocks are very 
many, and much greater in size. Indeed, they must 
grow monstrously bigger out to sea, for there must be 
ten sea miles of open water sown with them as thick as 
a country place with houses, some standing thirty feet 
above the tides, some covered, but all perilous to ships; 



302 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

so that on a clear, westerly blowing day, I have counted, 
from the top of Aros, the great rollers breaking white 
and heavy over as many as six-and-forty buried reefs. 
But it is nearer inshore that the danger is worst; for 
the tide, here running like a mill race, makes a long belt 
of broken water — a Roost we call it — at the tail of the 
land. I have often been out there in a dead calm at 
the slack of the tide; and a strange place it is, with the 
sea swirling and combing up and boiling like the caul- 
drons of a linn, and now and again a little dancing mut- 
ter of sound as though the Roost were talking to itself. 
But when the tide begins to run again, and above all in 
heavy weather, there is no man could take a boat within 
half a mile of it, nor a ship afloat that could either steer 
or live in such a place. You can hear the roaring of it 
six miles away. At the seaward end there comes the 
strongest of the bubble; and it 's here that these big 
breakers dance together — the dance of death, it may be 
called — that have got the name, in these parts, of the 
Merry Men. I have heard it said that they run fifty 
feet high; but that must be the green water only, for the 
spray runs twice as high as that. Whether they got the 
name from their movements, which are swift and antic, 
or from the shouting they make about the turn of the tide, 
so that all Aros shakes with it, is more than I can tell. 
The truth is, that in a south-westerly wind, that part 
of our archipelago is no better than a trap. If a ship got 
through the reefs, and weathered the Merry Men, it 
would be to come ashore on the south coast of Aros, in 
Sandag Bay, where so many dismal things befell our 
family, as I propose to tell. The thought of all these 
dangers, in the place I knew so long, makes me par- 
ticularly welcome the works now going forward to set 
lights upon the headlands and buoys along the channels 
of our iron-bound, inhospitable islands. 



THE MERRY MEN 303 

The country people had many a story about Aros, as 
I used to hear from my nucleus man, Rorie, an old ser- 
vant of the Macleans, who had transferred his services 
without afterthought on the occasion of the marriage. 
There was some tale of an unlucky creature, a sea-kelpie, 
that dwelt and did business in some fearful manner of 
his own among the boiling breakers of the Roost. A 
mermaid had once met a piper on Sandag beach, and 
there sang to him a long, bright midsunamer's night, so 
that in the morning he was found stricken crazy, and 
from thenceforward, till the day he died, said only one 
form of words; what they were in the original Gaelic I 
cannot tell, but they were thus translated : " Ah, the sweet 
singing out of the sea.'^ Seals that haunted on that coast 
have been known to speak to man in his own tongue, 
presaging great disasters. It was here that a certain 
saint first landed on his voyage out of Ireland to convert 
the Hebrideans. And, indeed, I think he had some 
claim to be called saint; for, with the boats of that past 
age, to make so rough a passage, and land on such a tick- 
lish coast, was surely not far short of the miraculous. 
It was to him, or to some of his monkish underlings who 
had a cell there, that the islet owes its holy and beautiful 
name, the House of God. 

Among these old wives' stories there was one which 
I was inclined to hear with more credulity. As I was 
told, in that tempest which scattered the ships of the 
Invincible Armada over all the north and west of Scot- 
land, one great vessel came ashore on Aros, and before 
the eyes of some solitary people on a hill-top, went down 
in a moment with all hands, her colours flying even as 
she sank. There was some likelihood in this tale; for 
another of that fleet lay sunk on the north side, twenty 
miles from Grisapol. It was told, I thought, with more 
detail and gravity than its companion stories, and there 



304 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

was one particularity which went far to convince me of 
its truth: the name, that is, of the ship was still remem- 
bered, and sounded, in my ears Spanishly. The Espirito 
Santo they called it, a great ship of many decks of guns, 
laden with treasure and grandees of Spain, and fierce 
soldadoes, that now lay fathom deep to all eternity, done 
with her wars and voyages, in Sandag Bay, upon the west 
of Aros. No more salvos of ordnance for that tall ship, 
the ^*Holy Spirit,^^ no more fair winds or happy ven- 
tures; only to rot there deep in the sea-tangle and hear 
the shoutings of the Merry Men as the tide ran high 
about the island. It was a strange thought to me first 
and last, and only grew stranger as I learned the more of 
the way in which she had set sail with so proud a com- 
pany, and King Philip, the wealthy king, that sent her 
on that voyage. 

And now I must tell you, as I walked from Grisapol 
that day, the Espirito Santo was very much in my re- 
flections. I had been favourably remarked by our then 
Principal in Edinburgh College, that famous writer, Dr. 
Robertson, and by him had been set to work on some 
papers of an ancient date to rearrange and sift of what 
was worthless; and in one of these, to my great wonder, 
I found a note of this very ship, the Espirito Santo, with 
her captain's name, and how she carried a great part of 
the Spaniard's treasure, and had been lost upon the Ross 
of Grisapol; but in what particular spot, the wild tribes 
of that place and period would give no information to 
the king's inquiries. Putting one thing with another, 
and taking our island tradition together with this note 
of old King Jamie's perquisitions after wealth, it had 
come strongly on my mind that the spot for which he 
sought in vain could be no other than the small bay of 
Sandag on my uncle's land; and being a fellow of a 
mechanical turn, I had ever since been plotting how to 



THE MERRY MEN 305 

weigh that good ship up again with all her ingots, ounces, 
and doubloons, and bring back our house of Darnaway 
to its long-forgotten dignity and wealth. 

This was a design of which I soon had reason to re- 
pent. My mind was sharply turned on different reflec- 
tions; and since I became the witness of a strange 
judgment of God's, the thought of dead men's treasures 
has been intolerable to my conscience. But even at that 
time I must acquit myself of sordid greed; for if I de- 
sired riches, it was not for their own sake, but for the 
sake of a person who was dear to my heart — my uncle's 
daughter, Mary Ellen. She had been educated well, 
and had been a time to school upon the mainland; which, 
poor girl, she would have been happier without. For 
Aros was no place for her, with old Rorie the servant, 
and her father, who was one of the unhappiest men in 
Scotland, plainly bred up in a country place among 
Cameronians, long a skipper sailing out of the Clyde 
about the islands, and now, with infinite discontent, 
managing his sheep and a little 'longshore fishing for the 
necessary bread. If it was sometimes weariful to me, 
who was there but a month or two, you may fancy what 
it was to her who dwelt in that same desert all the year 
round, with the sheep and flying seagulls, and the Merry 
Men singing and dancing in the Roost! 



CHAPTER H 

WHAT THE WRECK HAD BROUGHT TO AROS 

It was half-flood when I got the length of Aros; and 
there was nothing for it but to stand on the far shore 
and whistle for Rorie with the boat. I had no need to 
repeat the signal. At the first sound, Mary was at the 
door flying a handkerchief by way of answer, and the 



306 SELECTIONS FROIM STEVENSON 

old long-legged serving-man was shambling down the 
gravel to the pier. For all his hurry, it took him a long 
while to pull across the bay; and I observed him several 
times to pause, go into the stern, and look over curiously 
into the wake. As he came nearer, he seemed to me 
aged and haggard, and I thought he avoided my eye. 
The coble had been repaired, with two new thwarts and 
several patches of some rare and beautiful foreign wood, 
the name of it unknown to me. 

" Why, Rorie,'^ said I, as we began the return voyage, 
**this is fine wood. How came you by that?'^ 

^'It will be hard to cheesel,^' Rorie opined reluctantly; 
and just then, dropping the oars, he made another of 
those dives into the stern which I had remarked as he 
came across to fetch me, and, leaning his hand on my 
shoulder, stared with an awful look into the waters of 
the bay. 

"What is wrong ?^' I asked, a good deal startled. 

" It will be a great feesh,^^ said the old man, returning 
to his oars; and nothing more could I get out of him, 
but strange glances and an ominous nodding of the head. 
In spite of myself, I was infected with a measure of 
uneasiness; I turned also, and studied the wake. The 
water was still and transparent, but, out here in the 
middle of the bay, exceeding deep. For some time I 
could see naught; but at last it did seem to me as if 
something dark — a great fish, or perhaps only a shadow 
— followed studiously in the track of the moving coble. 
And then I remembered one of Rorie^s superstitions: 
how in a ferry in Morven, in some great, exterminating 
feud among the clans, a fish, the like of it unknown in 
all our waters, followed for some years the passage of the 
ferry-boat, until no man dared to make the crossing. 

"He will be waiting for the right man,^' said Rorie. 

Mary met me on the beach, and led me up the brae 



THE MERRY MEN 307 

and into the house of Aros. Outside and inside there 
were many changes. The garden was fenced with the 
same wood that I had noted in the boat; there were 
chairs in the kitchen covered with strange brocade; cur- 
tains of brocade hung from the window; a clock stood 
silent on the dresser; a lamp of brass was swinging from 
the roof; the table was set for dinner with the finest of 
linen and silver; and all these new riches were displayed 
in the plain old kitchen that I knew so well, with the 
high-backed settle, and the stools, and the closet-bed 
for Rorie; with the wide chimney the sun shone into, 
and the clear-smouldering peats; with the pipes on the 
mantelshelf and the three-cornered spittoons, filled with 
sea-shells instead of sand, on the floor; with the bare 
stone walls and the bare wooden floor, and the three 
patchwork rugs that were of yore its sole adornment — 
poor man^s patchwork, the like of it unknown in cities, 
woven with homespun, and Sunday black, and sea-cloth 
polished on the bench of rowing. The room, like the 
house, had been a sort of wonder in that country-side, 
it was so neat and habitable; and to see it now, shamed 
by these incongruous additions, filled me with indigna- 
tion and a kind of anger. In view of the errand I had 
come upon to Aros, the feeling was baseless and unjust; 
but it burned high, at the first moment, in my heart.^^ 

"Mary, girl,'' said I, "this is the place I had learned 
to call my home, and I do not know it.'' 

"It is my home by nature, not by the learning,^^ she 
replied; "the place I was born and the place I 'm like to 
die in; and I neither like these changes, nor the way 
they came, nor that which came with them. I would 
have liked better, under God's pleasure, they had gone 
down into the sea, and the Merry Men were dancing on 
them now." 

Mary was always serious; it was perhaps the only 



308 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

trait that she shared with her father; but the tone with 
which she uttered these words was even graver than of 
custom. 

"Ay," said I, "I feared it came by wreck, and that 's 
by death; yet when my father died, I took his goods 
without remorse." 

"Your father died a clean strae death/ as the folk 
say," said Mary. 

"True," I returned; "and a wreck is like a judgment. 
What was she called?" 

" They ca'd her the Christ-Anna" said a voice behind 
me; and, turning round, I saw my uncle standing in the 
doorway. 

He was a sour, small, bilious man, with a long face 
and very dark eyes; fifty-six years old, sound and active 
in body, and with an air somewhat between that of a 
shepherd and that of a man following the sea. He never 
laughed, that I heard; read long at the Bible; prayed 
much, like the Cameronians he had been brought up 
among; and indeed, in many ways, used to remind me of 
one of the hill-preachers in the killing times before the 
Revolution. But he never got much comfort, nor even, 
as I used to think, much guidance, by his piety. He 
had his black fits when he was afraid of hell; but he had 
led a rough life, to which he would look back with envy, 
and was still a rough, cold, gloomy man. 

As he came in at the door out of the sunlight, with 
his bonnet on his head and a pipe hanging in his button- 
hole, he seemed, like Rorie, to have grown older and 
paler, the lines were deeplier ploughed upon his face, and 
the whites of his eyes were yellow, like old stained ivory, 
or the bones of the dead. 

"Ay," he repeated, dwelling upon the first part of the 
word, "the Christ-Anna. It's an awfu' name." 
^ That is, he died in his bed. 



THE MERRY MEN 309 

I made him my salutations, and complimented him 
upon his look oT health; for I feared he had perhaps 
been ill. 

"I 'm in the body/' he icplied, ungraciously enough; 
^*aye in the body and the sins of the body, like yoursel'. 
Denner/' he said abruptly to Mary, and then ran on to 
me: "They're grand braws,^ thir that we hae gotten, 
are they no ? Yon 's a bonny knock,^ but it '11 no gang; 
and the napery 's by ordnar. Bonny, bairnly braws ; 
it 's for the like o' them folk sells the peace of God that 
passeth understanding; it 's for the like o' them, an' 
maybe no even sae muckle worth, folk daunton God to 
His face and burn in muckle hell; and it 's for that rea- 
son the Scripture ca's them, as I read the passage, the 
accursed thing. Mary, ye girzie," he interrupted him- 
self to cry with some asperity, " what for hae ye no put 
out the twa candlesticks?" 

"Why should we need them at high noon?" she 
asked. 

But my uncle was not to be turned from his idea. 
"We'll bruik^ them while we may," he said; and so 
two massive candlesticks of wrought silver were added 
to the table equipage, already so unsuited to that rough 
sea-side farm. 

"She cam' ashore Februar' 10, about ten at nicht," 
he went on to me. "There was nae wind, and a sair 
run o' sea; and she was in the sook o' the Roost, as I 
jaloose.^ We had seen her a' day, Rorie and me, beat- 
ing to the wind. She wasnae a handy craft, I 'm think- 
ing, that Christ'Anna; for she would neither steer nor 
stey wi' them. A sair day they had of it; their hands 
was never aff the sheets, and it perishin' cauld — ower 
cauld to snaw; and aye they would get a bit nip o' wind, 
and awa' again, to pit the emp'y hope into them. Eh, 

^Fineries. ^ Clock, ^ Enjoy. * Suspect. 



310 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

man! but they had a sair day for the last o't! He would 
have had a prood, prood heart that won ashore upon the 
back o' that/' 

"And were all lost?'' I cried. "God help them!'* 

"Wheesht!" he said sternly. "Nane shall pray for 
the deid on my hearth-stane." 

I disclaimed a Popish sense for my ejaculation; and 
he seemed to accept my disclaimer with unusual facility, 
and ran on once more upon what had evidently become 
a favourite subject. 

"We fand her in Sandag Bay, Rorie an' me, and a' 
thae braws in the inside of her. There 's a kittle bit, ye 
see, about Sandag; whiles the sook rins strong for the 
Merry Men; an' whiles again, when the tide 's makin' 
hard an' ye can hear the Roost blawin' at the far-end of 
Aros, there comes a back-spang of current straucht into 
Sandag Bay. Weel, there 's the thing that got the grip 
on the Christ-Anna. She but^ to have come in ram- 
stam^ an' stern forrit; for the bows of her are aften 
under, and the back-side of her is clear at hie-water o' 
neaps.^ But, man! the dunt that she cam' doon wi' when 
she struck! Lord save us a'! but it 's an unco life to be 
a sailor — a cauld, wanchancy^ life. Mony 's the gliff ^ I 
got mysel' in the great deep; and why the Lord should 
hae made yon unco water is mair than ever I could win 
to understand. He made the vales and the pastures, 
the bonny green yaird,^ the halesome, canty ^ land — 

And now they shout and sing to Thee, 
For Thou hast made them glad, 

as the Psalms say in the metrical version. No that I 
would preen^ my faith to that clink^ neither; but it 's 

2 At the lowest tides. 
^ Earth. 
» Rhyme. 



' Must. 


2 Rapidly. 


* Unlucky. 


* Fright. 


7 Cheerful. 


«Pin. 



THE MERRY MEN 311 

bonny, and easier to mind, ' Who go to sea in ships/ 
they hae ^t again— 

And in 
Great waters trading be, 
Within the deep these men God's works 
And His great wonders see. 

Weel, it ^s easy sayin^ sae. Maybe Dauvit wasnae very 
weel acquant wi^ the sea. But troth, if it wasnae pren- 
tit in the Bible, I wad whiles be temp'it to think it wasnae 
the Lord, but the muckle, black deil that made the sea. 
There 's naething good comes oot o't but the fish; an' 
the spentacle o' God riding on the tempest, to be shure, 
whilk would be what Dauvit was likely ettling at.^ But, 
man, they were sair wonders that God showed to the 
Christ-Anna — wonders, do I ca^ them? Judgments, 
rather: judgments in the mirk nicht among the draygons 
o^ the deep. And their souls — to think o^ that — their 
souls, man, maybe no prepared! The sea — n muckle 
yett^ to hell!^' 

I observed, as my uncle spoke, that his voice was un- 
naturally moved and his manner unwontedly demon- 
strative. He leaned forward at these last words, for 
example, and touched me on the knee with his spread 
fingers, looking up into my face with a certain pallor, 
and I could see that his eyes shone with a deep-seated 
fire, and that the lines about his mouth were drawn and 
tremulous. 

Even the entrance of Rorie, and the beginning of our 
meal, did not detach him from his train of thought be- 
yond a moment. He condescended, indeed, to ask me 
some questions as to my success at college, but I thought 
it was with half his mind; and even in his extempore 
grace, which was, as usual, long and wandering, I could 
^ Trying for. ^ Gate. 



312 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

find the trace of his preoccupation, praying, as he did, 
that God would "remember in mercy fower puir, feck- 
less,^ fiddling, sinful creatures here by their lee-lane be- 
side the great and dowie^ waters/^ 

Soon there came an interchange of speeches between 
him and Rorie. 

"Was it there ?^^ asked my uncle. 

"Ou, ay!'^ said Rorie. 

I observed that they both spoke in a manner of aside, 
and with some show of embarrassment, and that Mary 
herself appeared to colour, and looked down on her plate. 
Partly to show my knowledge, and so relieve the party 
from an awkward strain, partly because I was curious, 
I pursued the subject. 

"You mean the fish?" I asked. 

"Whatten fish?'' cried my uncle. "Fish, quo' he! 
Fish! Your een are fu' o' fatness, man; your heid 
dozened wi' carnal leir.^ Fish! it 's a bogle!" 

He spoke with great vehemence, as though angry; 
and perhaps I was not very willing to be put down so 
shortly, for young men are disputatious. At least I 
remember I retorted hotly, crying out upon childish 
superstitions. 

"And ye come frae the College!" sneered Uncle Gor- 
don. "Gude kens what they learn folk there; it 's no 
muckle service onyway. Do ye think, man, that there 's 
naething in a' yon saut wilderness o' a world oot wast^ 
there, wi' the sea grasses growin', an' the sea beasts 
fechtin', an' the sun glintin' down into it, day by day? 
Na; the sea 's like the land, but fearsomer. If there 's 
folk ashore, there 's folk in the sea — deid they may be, 
but they 're folk whatever; and as for deils, there 's nane 
that 's like the sea deils. There 's no sae muckle harm 

1 Feeble. 2 ]viad. 

^ Made stupid by worldly learning. 2 West. 



THE MERRY MEN 313 

in the land deils, when a's said and done. Lang syne, 
when I was a callant^ in the south country, I mind there 
was an auld, bald bogle in the Peewie Moss.^ I got a 
glisk o' him myseF, sittin^ on his hunkers in a hag, as 
gray ^s a tombstane. An^ troth, he was a fearsome-like 
taed. But he steered^ naebody. Nae doobt, if ana 
that was a reprobate, ane the Lord hated, had gane by 
there wi^ his sin still upon his stamach, nae doobt the 
creature would hae lowped upo^ the likes o^ him. But 
there ^s deils in the deep sea would yoke on^ a communi- 
cant! Eh, sirs, if ye had gane doon wi^ the puir lads in 
the Christ-Anna, ye would ken by now the mercy o' the 
seas. If ye had sailed it for as lang as me, ye would hate 
the thocht of it as I do. If ye had but used the een God 
gave ye, ye would hae learned the wickedness o^ that 
fause, saut, cauld, bullering^ creature, and of a' that ^s in 
it by the Lord's permission: labsters an' partans,^ an* 
sic like, howking^ in the deid; muckle, gutsy,^ blawing 
whales; an' fish — the hale clan o' them — cauld- wamed, 
blind-eed uncanny ferlies.^ O, sirs," he cried, ^^the 
horror — the horror o' the sea!" 

We were all somewhat staggered by this outburst; 
and the speaker himself, after that last hoarse apostrophe, 
appeared to sink gloomily into his own thoughts. But 
Rorie, who was greedy of superstitious lore, recalled him 
to the subject by a question. 

^'You will not ever have seen a teevil of the sea?" he 
asked. 

" No clearly," replied the other, ^^ I misdoobt if a mere 
man could see ane clearly and conteenue in the body. 
I hae sailed wi' a lad — they ca'd him Sandy Gabart; he 
saw ane, shiire eneuch, an' shiire eneuch it was the end 

* Young fellow. 

* Grip hold of. 
^ Digging. 



2 Bog. 


3 Meddled with. 


^ Gurgling. 


« Crabs. 


^ Voracious, 


^ Wonders. 



314 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

of him. We were seeven days oot frae the Clyde — a 
sair wark we had had — gaun north wi^ seeds an' braws 
an' things for the Macleod. We had got in ower near 
under the Cutchuirns, an' had just gane about by Soa, 
an' were off on a lang tack, we thocht would maybe 
hauld as far 's Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a 
mune smoored^ wi' mist; a fine gaun^ breeze upon the 
water, but no steedy; an' — what nane o' us likit to hear 
— anither wund gurlin'^ owerheid, amang thae fearsome, 
auld stane eraigs o' the Cutchull'ns. Weel, Sandy was 
forrit wi' the jib sheet; we couldnae see him for the 
mains'l, that had just begude to draw, when a' at ance 
he gied a skirl.^ I luffed for my life, for I thocht we were 
ower near Soa; but na, it wasnae that, it was puir Sandy 
Gabart's deid skreigh,^ or near hand, for he was deid in 
half an hour. A't he could tell was that a sea deil, or sea 
bogle, or sea spenster, or sic-like, had clum up by the 
bowsprit, an' gi'en him ae cauld, uncanny look. An', 
or the life was oot o' Sandy's body, we kent weel what the 
thing betokened, and why the wund gurled in the taps 
o' the Cutchull'ns; for doon it cam' — a wund do I ca' 
it! it was the wund o' the Lord's anger — an' a' that nicht 
we foucht like men dementit, and the niest that we 
kenned we were ashore in Loch Uskevagh, an' the cocks 
were crawing in Benbecula." 

"It will have been a merman," Rorie said. 

"A merman!" screamed my uncle, with immeasurable 
scorn. "Auld wives' clavers! ® There 's nae sic things 
as mermen." 

"But what was the creature like?" I asked. 

"What like was it? Gude forbid that we suld ken 
what like it was! It had a kind of a heid upon it — man 
could say nae mair." 

^ Smothered. ^ Moving. ^ Growling. 

* Shriek. 5 Death gcream. ® Idle tales. 



THE MERRY MEN 315 

Then Rorie, smarting under the affront, told several 
tales of mermen, mermaids, and sea-horses that had 
come ashore upon the islands and attacked the crews of 
boats upon the sea; and my uncle, in spite of his in- 
credulity, listened with uneasy interest. 

"Aweel, aweel," he said, "it may be sae; I may be 
wrang; but I find nae word o^ mermen in the Scriptures." 

^^And you will find nae word of Aros Roost, maybe," ob- 
jected Rorie, and his argument appeared to carry weight. 

When dinner was over, my uncle carried me forth 
with him to a bank behind the house. It was a very 
hot and quiet afternoon; scarce a ripple anywhere upon 
the sea, nor any voice but the familiar voice of sheep 
and gulls; and perhaps in consequence of this repose in 
nature, my kinsman showed himself more rational and 
tranquil than before. He spoke evenly and almost cheer- 
fully of my career, with every now and then a reference 
to the lost ship or the treasures it had brought to Aros. 
For my part, I listened to him in a sort of trance, gazing 
with all my heart on that remembered scene, and drink- 
ing gladly the sea-air and the smoke of peats that had 
been lit by Mary. 

Perhaps an hour had passed when my uncle, who had 
all the while been covertly gazing on the surface of the 
little bay, rose to his feet, and bade me follow his ex- 
ample. Now I should say that the great run of tide at 
the south-west end of Aros exercises a perturbing influ- 
ence round all the coast. In Sandag Bay, to the south, 
a strong current runs at certain periods of the flood and 
ebb respectively; but in this northern bay — Aros Bay, 
as it is called — where the house stands and on which my 
uncle was now gazing, the only sign of disturbance is 
towards the end of the ebb, and even then it is too slight 
to be remarkable. When there is any swell, nothing can 
be seen at all; but when it is calm, as it often is, there 



316 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

appear certain strange, undecipherable marks — sea-runes, 
as we may name them — on the glassy surface of the bay. 
The like is common in a thousand places on the coast; 
and many a boy must have amused himself as I did, 
seeking to read in them some reference to himself or 
those he loved. It was to these marks that my uncle 
now directed my attention, struggling as he did so, with 
an evident reluctance. 

"Do ye see yon scart^ upo^ the water?'* he inquired; 
"yon ane wast the gray stane? Ay? Weel, it 11 no be 
like a letter, wull it?'' 

" Certainly it is," I replied. " I have often remarked 
it. It is like a C' 

He heaved a sigh as if heavily disappointed with my 
answer, and then added below his breath: "Ay, for the 
Christ' Anna.'' 

" I used to suppose, sir, it was for myself,'' said I; " for 
my name is Charles." 

"And so ye saw 't afore?" he ran on, not heeding my 
remark. " Weel, weel, but that 's unco strange. Maybe, 
it 's been there waitin', as a man wad say, through a' the 
weary ages. Man, but that 's awfu'." And then, break- 
ing off: "Ye '11 no see anither, will ye?" he asked. 

"Yes," said I. "I see another very plainly, near the 
Ross side, where the road comes down — an M." 

"An M," he repeated very low; and then, again after 
another pause: "An' what wad ye make o' that?" he 
inquired. 

"I had always thought it to mean Mary, sir," I an- 
swered, growing somewhat red, convinced as I was in 
my own mind that I was on the threshold of a decisive 
explanation. 

But we were each following his own train of thought 
to the exclusion of the other's. My uncle once more 

^ Scratch, 



THE MERRY MEN 317 

paid no attention to my words; only hung his head and 
held his peace; and I might have been led to fancy that 
he had not heard me, if his next speech had not con- 
tained a kind of echo from my own. 

"I would say naething o' thae clavers to Mary," he 
observed, and began to walk forward. 

There is a belt of turf along the side of Aros Bay 
where walking is easy; and it was along this that I 
silently followed my silent kinsman. I was perhaps a 
little disappointed at having lost so good an opportunity 
to declare my love; but I was at the same time far more 
deeply exercised at the change that had befallen my 
uncle. He was never an ordinary, never, in the strict 
sense, an amiable, man; but there was nothing in even 
the worst that I had known of him before, to prepare 
me for so strange a transformation. It was impossible 
to close the eyes against one fact; that he had, as the 
saying goes, something on his mind; and as I mentally 
ran over the different words which might be represented 
by the letter M — misery, mercy, marriage, money, and 
the like — I was arrested with a sort of start by the word 
murder. I was still considering the ugly sound and fatal 
meaning of the word, when the direction of our walk 
brought us to a point from which a view was to be had 
to either side, back towards Aros Bay and homestead, 
and forward on the ocean, dotted to the north with isles, 
and lying to the southward blue and open to the sky. 
There my guide came to a halt, and stood staring for a 
while on that expanse. Then he turned to me and laid 
a hand on my arm. 

"Ye think there ^s naething there?" he said, pointing 
with his pipe; and then cried out aloud, with a kind of 
exultation: "I'll tell ye, man! The deid are down 
there — thick like rattons!''^ 

» Rats. 



318 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

He turned at once, and, without another word, we 
retraced our steps to the house of Aros. 

I was eager to be alone with Mary; yet it was not till 
after supper, and then but for a short while, that I could 
have a word with her. I lost no time beating about the 
bush, but spoke out plainly what was on my mind. 

" Mary," I said, " I have not come to Aros without a 
hope. If that should prove well founded, we may all 
leave and go somewhere else, secure of daily bread and 
comfort; secure, perhaps, of something far beyond that, 
which it would seem extravagant in me to promise. But 
there ^s a hope that lies nearer to my heart than money." 
And at that I paused. "You can guess fine what that is, 
Mary," I said. She looked away from me in silence, 
and that was small encouragement, but I was not to be 
put off. "All my days I have thought the world of you," 
I continued; "the time goes on and I think always the 
more of you; I could not think to be happy or hearty in 
my life without you: you are the apple of my eye," Still 
she looked away, and said never a word; but I thought I 
saw that her hands shook. "Mary," I cried in fear, 
"do ye no like me?" 

"O, Charlie man," she said, "is this a time to speak 
of it? Let me be, a while; let me be the way I am; 
it ^11 not be you that loses by the waiting!" 

I made out by her voice that she was nearly weeping, 
and this put me out of any thought but to compose her. 
"Mary Ellen," I said, "say no more; I did not come to 
trouble you: your way shall be mine, and your time too; 
and you have told me all I wanted. Only just this one 
thing more: what ails you?" 

She owned it was her father, but would enter into no 
particulars, only shook her head, and said he was not 
well and not like himself, and it was a great pity. She 
knew nothing of the wreck. "I havenae been near it," 



THE MERRY MEN 319 

said she. "What for would I go near it, Charlie lad? 
The poor souls are gone to their account long syne; and 
I would just have wished they had ta'en their gear with 
them — poor souls!" 

This was scarcely any great encouragement for me to 
tell her of the Espirito Santo; yet I did so, and at the 
very first word she cried out in surprise. "There was 
a man at Grisapol," she said, "in the month of May — 
a little, yellow, black-avised^ body, they tell me, with 
gold rings upon his fingers, and a beard; and he was 
speiring high and low for that same ship." 

It was towards the end of April that I had been given 
these papers to sort out by Dr. Robertson: and it came 
suddenly back upon my mind that they were thus pre- 
pared for a Spanish historian, or a man calling himself 
such, who had come with high recommendations to the 
Principal, on a mission of inquiry as to the dispersion of 
the great Armada. Putting one thing with another, I 
fancied that the visitor "with the gold rings upon his 
fingers" might be the same with Dr. Robertson^s his- 
torian from Madrid. If that were so, he would be more 
likely after treasure for himself than information for a 
learned society. I made up my mind, I should lose no 
time over my undertaking; and if the ship lay sunk in 
Sandag Bay, as perhaps both he and I supposed, it 
should not be for the advantage of this ringed adven- 
turer, but for Mary and myself, and for the good, old, 
honest, kindly family of the Darnaways. 



CHAPTER HI 

LAND AND SEA IN SANDAG BAY 

I WAS early afoot next morning; and as soon as I had 
a bite to eat, set forth upon a tour of exploration. Some- 
* Dark-complexioned. 



320 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

thing in my heart distinctly told me that I should find 
the ship of the Armada; and although I did not give 
way entirely to such hopeful thoughts, I was still very 
light in spirits and walked upon air. Aros is a very 
rough islet, its surface strewn with great rocks and shaggy 
with fern and heather; and my way lay almost north 
and south across the highest knoll; and though the whole 
distance was inside of two miles, it took more time and 
exertion than four upon a level road. Upon the summit, 
I paused. Although not very high — not three hundred 
feet, as I think — it yet outtops all the neighbouring low- 
lands of the Ross, and commands a great view of sea and 
islands. The sun, which had been up some time, was 
already hot upon my neck; the air was listless and thun- 
dery, although purely clear; away over the north-west, 
where the isles lie thickliest congregated, some half-a- 
dozen small and ragged clouds hung together in a covey; 
and the head of Ben Kyaw wore, not merely a few 
streamers, but a solid hood of vapour. There was a 
threat in the weather. The sea, it is true, was smooth 
like glass: even the Roost was but a seam on that wide 
mirror, and the Merry Men no more than caps of foam; 
but to my eye and ear, so long familiar with these places, 
the sea also seemed to lie uneasily; a sound of it, like a 
long sigh, mounted to me where I stood; and, quiet as it 
was, the Roost itself appeared to be revolving mischief. 
For I ought to say that all we dwellers in these parts 
attributed, if not prescience, at least a quality of warning, 
to that strange and dangerous creature of the tides. 

I hurried on, then, with the greater speed, and had 
soon descended the slope of Aros to the part that we call 
Sandag Bay. It is a pretty large piece of water compared 
with the size of the isle; well sheltered from all but the 
prevailing wind; sandy and shoal and bounded by low 
sand-hills to the west, but to the eastward lying several 
fathoms deep along a ledge of rocks. It is upon that 



THE MERRY MEN 321 

side that, at a certain time each flood, the current men- 
tioned by my uncle sets so strong into the bay; a little 
later, when the Roost begins to work higher, an undertow 
runs still more strongly in the reverse direction; and it is 
the action of this last, as I suppose, that has scoured 
that part so deep. Nothing is to be seen out of Sandag 
Bay but one small segment of the horizon and, in heavy 
weather, the breakers flying high over a deep sea reef. 

From half-way down the hill, I had perceived the 
wreck of February last, a brig of considerable tonnage, 
lying, with her back broken, high and dry on the east 
corner of the sands; and I was making directly towards 
it, and already almost on the margin of the turf, when 
my eyes were suddenly arrested by a spot, cleared of 
fern and heather, and marked by one of those long, low, 
and almost human-looking mounds that we see so 
commonly in graveyards. I stopped like a man shot. 
Nothing had been said to me of any dead man or inter- 
ment on the island; Rorie, Mary, and my uncle had all 
equally held their peace; of her at least, I was certain 
that she must be ignorant; and yet here, before my eyes, 
was proof indubitable of the fact. Here was a grave; 
and I had to ask myself, with a chill, what manner of 
man lay there in his last sleep, awaiting the signal of the 
Lord in that solitary, sea-beat resting-place ? My mind 
supplied no answer but what I feared to entertain. 
Shipwrecked, at least, he must have been; perhaps, like 
the old Armada mariners, from some far and rich land 
over-sea; or perhaps one of my own race, perishing 
within eyesight of the smoke of home. I stood awhile 
uncovered by his side, and I could have desired that it 
had lain in our religion to put up some prayer for that 
unhappy stranger, or, in the old classic way, outwardly 
to honour his misfortune. I knew, although his bones 
lay there, a part of Aros, till the trumpet sounded, his 



322 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

imperishable soul was forth and far away, among the 
raptures of the everlasting Sabbath or the pangs of hell; 
and yet my mind misgave me even with a fear, that per- 
haps he was near me where I stood, guarding his sepul- 
chre, and lingering on the scene of his unhappy fate. 

Certainly it was with a spirit somewhat overshadowed 
that I turned away from the grave to the hardly less 
melancholy spectacle of the wreck. Her stem was above 
the first arc of the flood; she was broken in two a little 
abaft the foremast — though indeed she had none, both 
masts having broken short in her disaster; and as the 
pitch of the beach was very sharp and sudden, and the 
bows lay many feet below the stern, the fracture gaped 
widely open, and you could see right through her poor 
hull upon the farther side. Her name was much de- 
faced, and I could not make out clearly whether she was 
called Christiania, after the Norwegian city, or Christie 
ana, after the good woman, Christian's w^fe, in that old 
book the "Pilgrim's Progress." By her build she was 
a foreign ship, but I was not certain of her nationality. 
She had been painted green, but the colour was faded 
and weathered, and the paint peeling off in strips. The 
wreck of the mainmast lay alongside, half buried in 
sand. She was a forlorn sight, indeed, and I could not 
look without emotion at the bits of rope that still hung 
about her, so often handled of yore by shouting seamen; 
or the little scuttle where they had passed up and down 
to their affairs; or that poor noseless angel of a figure- 
head that had dipped into so many running billows. 

I do not know whether it came most from the ship or 
from the grave, but I fell into some melancholy scruples, 
as I stood there, leaning with one hand against the bat- 
tered timbers. The homelessness of men and even of 
inanimate vessels, cast away upon strange shores, came 
strongly in upon my mind. To make a profit of such 



THE MERRY MEN 323 

pitiful misadventures seemed an unmanly and a sordid 
act; and I began to think of my then quest as of some- 
thing sacrilegious in its nature. But when I remembered 
Mary, I took heart again. My uncle would never con- 
sent to an imprudent marriage, nor would she, as I was 
persuaded, wed without his full approval. It behoved 
me, then, to be up and doing for my wife; and I thought 
with a laugh how long it was since that great sea-castle, 
the Espirito Santo, had left her bones in Sandag Bay, 
and how weak it would be to consider rights so long 
extinguished and misfortunes so long forgotten in the 
process of time. 

I had my theory of where to seek for her remains. 
The set of the current and the soundings both pointed 
to the east side of the bay under the ledge of rocks. If 
she had been lost in Sandag Bay, and if, after these cen- 
turies, any portion of her held together, it was there that 
I should find it. The water deepens, as I have said, 
with great rapidity, and even close alongside the rocks 
several fathoms may be found. As I walked upon the 
edge I could see far and wide over the sandy bottom of 
the bay; the sun shone clear and green and steady in the 
deeps; the bay seemed rather like a great transparent 
crystal, as one sees them in a lapidary's shop; there was 
naught to show that it was water but an internal trem- 
bling, a hovering within of sun-glints and netted shadows, 
and now and then a faint lap and a dying bubble round 
the edge. The shadows of the rocks lay out for some 
distance at their feet, so that my own shadow, moving, 
pausing, and stooping on the top of that, reached some- 
times half across the bay. It was above all in this belt 
of shadows that I hunted for the Espirito Santo; since 
it was there the undertow ran strongest, whether in or 
out. Cool as the whole water seemed this broiling day, 
it looked, in that part, yet cooler, and had a mysterious 



324 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

invitation for the eyes. Peer as I pleased, however, I 
could see nothing but a few fishes or a bush of sea-tangle, 
and here and there a lump of rock that had fallen from 
above and now lay separate on the sandy floor. Twice 
did I pass from one end to the other of the rocks, and in 
the whole distance I could see nothing of the wreck, nor 
any place but one where it was possible for it to be. 
This was a large terrace in five fathoms of water, raised 
off the surface of the sand to a considerable height, and 
looking from above like a mere outgrowth of the rocks on 
which I walked. It was one mass of great sea-tangles 
like a grove, which prevented me judging of its nature, 
but in shape and size it bore some likeness to a vessel's 
hull. At least it was my best chance. If the Espirito 
Santo lay not there under the tangles, it lay nowhere at 
all in Sandag Bay; and I prepared to put the question 
to the proof, once and for all, and either go back to Aros 
a rich man or cured for ever of my dreams of wealth. 

I stripped to the skin, and stood on the extreme mar- 
gin with my hands clasped, irresolute. The bay at that 
time was utterly quiet; there was no sound but from a 
school of porpoises somewhere out of sight behind the 
point; yet a certain fear withheld me on the threshold 
of my venture. Sad sea-feelings, scraps of my uncle's 
superstitions, thoughts of the dead, of the grave, of the 
old broken ships, drifted through my mind. But the 
strong sun upon my shoulders warmed me to the heart, 
and I stooped forward and plunged into the sea. 

It was all that I could do to catch a trail of the sea- 
tangle that grew so thickly on the terrace; but once so 
far anchored I secured myself by grasping a whole arm- 
ful of these thick and slimy stalks, and, planting my feet 
against the edge, I looked around me. On all sides the 
clear sand stretched forth unbroken; it came to the foot 
of the rocks, scoured into the likeness of an alley in a 



THE MERRY MEN 325 

garden by the action of the tides; and before me, for as 
far as I could see, nothing was visible but the same 
many-folded sand upon the sun-bright bottom of the 
bay. Yet the terrace to which I was then holding was 
as thick with strong sea-growths as a tuft of heather, 
and the cliff from which it bulged hung draped below 
the water-line with brown lianas. In this complexity of 
forms, all swaying together in the current, things were 
hard to be distinguished; and I was still uncertain 
whether my feet were pressed upon the natural rock or 
upon the timbers of the Armada treasure-ship, when the 
whole tuft of tangle came away in my hand, and in an 
instant I was on the surface, and the shores of the bay 
and the bright water swam before my eyes in a glory of 
crimson. 

I clambered back upon the rocks, and threw the plant 
of tangle at my feet. Something at the same moment 
rang sharply, like a falling coin. I stooped, and there, 
sure enough, crusted with the red rust, there lay an iron 
shoe-buckle. The sight of this poor human relic thrilled 
me to the heart, but not with hope nor fear, only with a 
desolate melancholy. I held it in my hand, and the 
thought of its owner appeared before me like the pres- 
ence of an actual man. His weather-beaten face, his 
sailor's hand, his sea-voice hoarse with singing at the 
capstan, the very foot that had once worn that buckle 
and trod so much along the swerving decks — the whole 
human fact of him, as a creature like myself, with hair 
and blood and seeing eyes, haunted me in that sunny, 
solitary place, not like a spectre, but like some friend 
whom I had basely injured. Was the great treasure-ship 
indeed below there, with her guns and chain and treasure, 
as she had sailed from Spain; her decks a garden for the 
sea-weed, her cabin a breeding-place for fish, soundless 
but for the dredging water, motionless but for the waving 



326 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

of the tangle upon her battlements — that old, populous, 
sea-riding castle, now a reef in Sandag Bag? Or, as I 
thought it likelier, was this a waif from the disaster of 
the foreign brig — was this shoe-buckle bought but the 
other day and worn by a man of my own period in the 
world's history, hearing the same news from day to day, 
thinking the same thoughts, praying, perhaps, in the 
same temple with myself? However it was, I was as- 
sailed with dreary thoughts; my uncle's words, "the 
dead are down there," echoed in my ears; and though I 
determined to dive once more, it was with a strong re- 
pugnance that I stepped forward to the margin of the 
rocks. 

A great change passed at that moment over the ap- 
pearance of the bay. It was no more that clear, visible 
interior, like a house roofed with glass, where the green, 
submarine sunshine slept so stilly. A breeze, I suppose, 
had flawed the surface, and a sort of trouble and black- 
ness filled its bosom, where flashes of light and clouds 
of shadow tossed confusedly together. Even the ter- 
race below obscurely rocked and quivered. It seemed a 
graver thing to venture on this place of ambushes; and 
when I leaped into the sea the second time it was with 
a quaking in my soul. 

I secured myself as at first, and groped among the 
waving tangle. All that met my touch was cold and soft 
and gluey. The thicket was alive with crabs and lob- 
sters, trundling to and fro lopsidedly, and I had to 
harden my heart against the horror of their carrion 
neighbourhood. On all sides I could feel the grain and 
the clefts of hard, living stone; no planks, no iron, not 
a sign of any wreck; the Espirito Santo was not there. I 
remember I had almost a sense of relief in my disap- 
pointment, and I was about ready to leave go, when 
something happened that sent me to the surface with my 



THE MERRY MEN 327 

heart in my mouth. I had already stayed somewhat 
late over my explorations; the current was freshening 
with the change of the tide, and Sandag Bay was no 
longer a safe place for a single swimmer. Well, just at 
the last moment there came a sudden flush of current, 
dredging through the tangles like a wave. I lost one 
hold, was flung sprawling on my side, and, instinctively 
grasping for a fresh support, my fingers closed on some- 
thing hard and cold. I think I knew at that moment 
what it was. At least I instantly left hold of the tangle, 
leaped for the surface, and clambered out next moment 
on the friendly rocks with the bone of a man^s leg in my 
grasp. 

Mankind is a material creature, slow to think and dull 
to perceive connections. The grave, the wreck of the 
brig, and the rusty shoe-buckle were surely plain adver- 
tisements. A child might have read their dismal story, 
and yet it was not until I touched that actual piece of 
mankind that the full horror of the charnel ocean burst 
upon my spirit. I laid the bone beside the buckle, 
picked up my clothes, and ran as I was along the rocks 
towards the human shore. I could not be far enough 
from the spot; no fortune was vast enough to tempt me 
back again. The bones of the drowned dead should 
henceforth roll undisturbed by me, whether on tangle 
or minted gold. But as soon as I trod the good earth 
again and had covered my nakedness against the sun, I 
knelt down over against the ruins of the brig, and out of 
the fulness of my heart prayed long and passionately for 
all poor souls upon the sea. A generous prayer is never 
presented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the 
petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious 
visitation. The horror, at least, was lifted from my 
mind; I could look with calm of spirit on that great 
bright creature, God's ocean; and as I set off homeward 



328 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

up the rough sides of Aros, nothing remained of any 
concern beyond a deep determination to meddle no more 
with the spoils of wrecked vessels or the treasures of the 
dead. 

I was already some way up the hill before I paused to 
breathe and look behind me. The sight that met my 
eyes was doubly strange. 

For, first, the storm that I had foreseen was now ad- 
vancing with almost tropical rapidity. The whole sur- 
face of the sea had been dulled from its conspicuous 
brightness to an ugly hue of corrugated lead; already in 
the distance the white waves, the "skipper^s daughters,'* 
had begun to flee before a breeze that was still insen- 
sible on Aros; and already along the curve of Sandag 
Bay there was a splashing run of sea that I could hear 
from where I stood. The change upon the sky was even 
more remarkable. There had begun to arise out of the 
south-west a huge and solid continent of scowling cloud; 
here and there, through rents in its contexture, the sun 
still poured a sheaf of spreading rays; and here and 
there, from all its edges, vast inky streamers lay forth 
along the yet unclouded sky. The menace was express 
and imminent. Even as I gazed, the sun was blotted 
out. At any moment the tempest might fall upon Aros 
in its might. 

The suddenness of this change of weather so fixed my 
eyes on heaven that it was some seconds before they 
alighted on the bay, mapped out below my feet, and 
robbed a moment later of the sun. The knoll which I 
had just surmounted overflanked a little amphitheatre 
of lower hillocks sloping towards the sea, and beyond 
that the yellow arc of beach and the whole extent of 
Sandag Bay. It was a scene on which I had often 
looked down, but where I had never before beheld a 
human figure. I had but just turned my back upon it 



THE MERRY MEN 329 

and left it empty, and my wonder may be fancied when 
I saw a boat and several men in that deserted spot. The 
boat was lying by the rocks. A pair of fellows, bare- 
headed, with their sleeves rolled up, and one with a boat- 
hook, kept her with difficulty to her moorings, for the 
current was growing brisker every moment. A little 
way off upon the ledge two men in black clothes, whom 
I judged to be superior in rank, laid their heads together 
over some task which at first I did not understand, but a 
second after I had made it out — they were taking bear- 
ings with the compass; and just then I saw one of them 
unroll a sheet of paper and lay his finger down, as though 
identifying features in a map. Meanwhile a third was 
walking to and fro, poking among the rocks and peering 
over the edge into the water. While I was still watch- 
ing them with the stupefaction of surprise, my mind 
hardly yet able to work on what my eyes reported, this 
third person suddenly stooped and summoned his com- 
panions with a cry so loud that it reached my ears upon 
the hill. The others ran to him, even dropping the com- 
pass in their hurry, and I could see the bone and the 
shoe-buckle going from hand to hand, causing the most 
unusual gesticulations of surprise and interest. Just 
then I could hear the seamen crying from the boat, and 
saw them point westward to that cloud continent which 
was ever the more rapidly unfurling its blackness over 
heaven. The others seemed to consult; but the danger 
was too pressing to be braved, and they bundled into the 
boat carrying my relics with them, and set forth out of 
the bay with all speed of oars. 

I made no more ado about the matter, but turned and 
ran for the house. Whoever these men were, it was fit 
my uncle should be instantly informed. It was not then 
altogether too late in the day for a descent of the Jacob- 
ites; and maybe Prince Charlie, whom I knew my uncle 



330 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

to detest, was one of the three superiors whom I had 
seen upon the rock. Yet as I ran, leaping from rock to 
rock, and turned the matter loosely in my mind, this 
theory grew ever the longer the less welcome to my 
reason. The compass, the map, the interest awakened 
by the buckle, and the conduct of that one among the 
strangers who had looked so often below him in the 
water, all seemed to point to a different explanation of 
their presence on that outlying, obscure islet of the 
western sea. The Madrid historian, the search insti- 
tuted by Dr. Robertson, the bearded stranger with the 
rings, my own fruitless search that very morning in the 
deep water of Sandag Bay, ran together, piece by piece, 
in my memory, and I made sure that these strangers 
must be Spaniards in quest of ancient treasure and the 
lost ship of the Armada. But the people living in out- 
lying islands, such as Aros, are answerable for their own 
security; there is none near by to protect or even to 
help them; and the presence in such a spot of a crew of 
foreign adventurers — poor, greedy, and most likely law- 
less — filled me with apprehensions for my uncle's money, 
and even for the safety of his daughter. I was still 
wondering how we were to get rid of them when I came, 
all breathless, to the top of Aros. The whole world was 
shadowed over; only in the extreme east, on a hill of the 
mainland, one last gleam of sunshine lingered like a 
jewel; rain had begun to fall, not heavily, but in great 
drops; the sea was rising with each moment, and already 
a band of white encircled Aros and the nearer coasts of 
Grisapol. The boat was still pulling seaward, but I now 
became aware of what had been hidden from me lower 
down — a large, heavily sparred, handsome schooner, 
lying to at the south end of Aros. Since I had not seen 
her in the morning when I had looked around so closely 
at the signs of the weather, and upon these lone waters 



THE MERRY MEN 331 

where a sail was rarely visible, it was clear she must have 
lain last night behind the uninhabited Eilean Gour, and 
this proved conclusively that she was manned by strangers 
to our coast, for that anchorage, though good enough to 
look at, is little better than a trap for ships. With such 
ignorant sailors upon so wild a coast, the coming gale 
was not unlikely to bring death upon its wings. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE GALE 

I FOUND my uncle at the gable end, watching the 
signs of the weather, with a pipe in his fingers. 

"Uncle,'^ said I, "there were men ashore at Sandag 
Bay " 

I had no time to go further; indeed, I not only forgot 
my words, but even my weariness, so strange was the 
effect on Uncle Gordon. He dropped his pipe and fell 
back against the end of the house with his jaw fallen, 
his eyes staring, and his long face as white as paper. 
We must have looked at one another silently for a quar- 
ter of a minute, before he made answer in this extraor- 
dinary fashion: "Had he a hair kep on?^' 

I knew as well as if I had been there that the man 
who now lay buried at Sandag had worn a hairy cap, 
and that he had come ashore alive. For the first and 
only time I lost toleration for the man who was my 
benefactor and the father of the woman I hoped to call 
my wife. 

"These were living men," said I, "perhaps Jacobites, 
perhaps the French, perhaps pirates, perhaps adven- 
turers come here to seek the Spanish treasure-ship; but, 
whatever they may be, dangerous at least to your daugh- 



332 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ter and my cousin. As for your own guilty terrors, 
man, the dead sleeps well where you have laid him. I 
stood this morning by his grave; he will not wake before 
the trump of doom/^ 

My kinsman looked upon me, blinking, while I spoke; 
then he fixed his eyes for a little on the ground, and 
pulled his fingers foolishly; but it was plain that he was 
past the power of speech. 

''Come," said I. "You must think for others. You 
must come up the hill with me, and see this ship." 

He obeyed without a word or a look, following slowly 
after my impatient strides. The spring seemed to have 
gone out of his body, and he scrambled heavily up and 
down the rocks, instead of leaping, as he was wont, 
from one to another. Nor could I, for all my cries, in- 
duce him to make better haste. Only once he replied to 
me complainingly, and like one in bodily pain: "Ay, 
ay, man, I'm coming." Long before we had reached 
the top, I had no other thought for him but pity. If 
the crime had been monstrous, the punishment was in 
proportion. 

At last we emerged above the sky-line of the hill, and 
could see around us. All was black and stormy to the 
eye; the last gleam of sun had vanished; a wind had 
sprung up, not yet high, but gusty and unsteady to the 
point; the rain, on the other hand, had ceased. Short 
as was the interval, the sea already ran vastly higher 
than when I had stood there last; already it had begun 
to break over some of the outward reefs, and already it 
moaned aloud in the sea-caves of Aros. I looked, at first 
in vain, for the schooner. 

" There she is," I said at last. But her new position, 
and the course she was now lying, puzzled me. "They 
cannot mean to beat to sea," I cried. 

"That's what they mean," said my uncle, with some- 



THE MERRY MEN 333 

thing like joy; and just then the schooner went about 
and stood upon another tack, which put the question 
beyond the reach of doubt. These strangers, seeing a 
gale on hand, had thought first of sea-room. With the 
wind that threatened, in these reef-sown waters and con- 
tending against so violent a stream of tide, their course 
was certain death. 

"Good Godr^ said I, "they are all lost/' 

"Ay," returned my uncle, "a' — a^ lost. They hadnae 
a chance but to rin for Kyle Dona. The gate they ^re 
gaun the noo, they couldnae win through an the muckle 
deil were there to pilot them. Eh, man,'^ he continued, 
touching me on the sleeve, " it's a braw nicht for a ship- 
wreck! Twa in ae twalmonth! Eh, but the Merry 
Men '11 dance bonny T' 

I looked at him, and it was then that I began to fancy 
him no longer in his right mind. He was peering up 
to me, as if for sympathy, a timid joy in his eyes. All 
that had passed between us was already forgotten in the 
prospect of this fresh disaster. 

"If it were not too late,'' I cried with indignation,"! 
would take the coble and go out to warn them." 

"Na, na," he protested, "ye maunnae interfere; ye 
maunnae meddle wi' the like o' that. It 's His," — doff- 
ing his bonnet — "His wuU. And, eh, man! but it 's a 
braw nicht for 't!" 

Something like fear began to creep into my soul; and, 
reminding him that I had not yet dined, I proposed we 
should return to the house. But no; nothing would 
tear him from his place of outlook. 

" I maun see the hail thing, man, Cherlie," he explained; 
and then as the schooner went about a second time, 
"Eh, but they han'le her bonny!" he cried. "The 
Christ-Anna was naething to this." 

Already the men on board the schooner must have 



334 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

begun to realize some part, but not yet the twentieth, 
of the dangers that environed their doomed ship. At 
every lull of the capricious wind they must have seen 
how fast the current swept them back. Each tack was 
made shorter, as they saw how little it prevailed. Every 
moment the rising swell began to boom and foam upon 
another sunken reef; and ever and again a breaker 
would fall in sounding ruin under the very bows of her, 
and the brown reef and streaming tangle appear in the 
hollow of the wave. I tell you, they had to stand to their 
tackle: there was no idle man aboard that ship, God 
knows. It was upon the progress of a scene so horrible 
to any human-hearted man that my misguided uncle 
now pored and gloated like a connoisseur. As I turned 
to go down the hill, he was lying on his belly on the 
summit, with his hands stretched forth and clutching 
in the heather. He seemed rejuvenated, mind and 
body. 

When I got back to the house already dismally af- 
fected, I was still more sadly downcast at the sight of 
Mary. She had her sleeves rolled up over her strong 
arms, and was quietly making bread. I got a bannock^ 
from the dresser and sat down to eat it in silence. 

"Are ye wearied, lad?^^ she asked after a while. 

" I am not so much wearied, Mary,'' I replied, getting 
on my feet, "as I am weary of delay, and perhaps of 
Aros too. You know me well enough to judge me fairly, 
say what I like. Well, Mary, you may be sure of this: 
you had better be anywhere but here.'' 

"I'll be sure of one thing," she returned: "1*11 be 
where my duty is." 

"You forget, you have a duty to yourself," I said. 

"Ay, man?" she replied, pounding at the dough; 
** will you have found that in the Bible, now ? " 
^ A cake made from coarse meal. 



THE MERRY MEN 335 

"Mary," I said solemnly, "you must not laugh at me 
just now. God knows I am in no heart for laughing. 
If we could get your father with us, it would be best; 
but with him or without him, I want you far away from 
here, my girl; for your own sake, and for mine, ay, and 
for your father's too, I want you far — far away from here. 
I came with other thoughts; I came here as a man 
comes home; now it is all changed, and I have no desire 
nor hope but to flee — for that 's the word — flee, like a bird 
out of the fowler's snare, from this accursed island/^ 

She had stopped her work by this time. 

^'And do you think, now," said she, "do you think, 
now, I have neither eyes nor ears ? Do ye think I have- 
nae broken my heart to have these braws (as he calls 
them, God forgive him!) thrown into the sea? Do ye 
think I have lived with him, day in, day out, and not 
seen what you saw in an hour or two ? No," she said, 
"I know there's wrong in it; what wrong, I neither 
know nor want to know. There was never an ill thing 
made better by meddling, that I could hear of. But, 
my lad, you must never ask me to leave my father. 
While the breath is in his body, I '11 be with him. And 
he's not long for here, either: that I can tell you, Charlie 
— he 's not long for here. The mark is on his brow; and 
better so — maybe better so." 

I was a while silent, not knowing what to say; and 
when I roused my head at last to speak, she got before 
me. 

" Charlie," she said, " what 's right for me, neednae be 
right for you. There 's sin upon this house and trouble; 
you are a stranger; take your things upon your back and 
go your ways to better places and to better folk, and if 
you were ever minded to come back, though it were 
twenty years syne, you would find me aye waiting." 

" Mary Ellen," I said, " I asked you to be my wife, and 



336 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

you said as good as yes. That 's done for good. Where- 
ever you are, I am; as I shall answer to my God/* 

As I said the words, the winds suddenly burst out rav- 
ing, and then seemed to stand still and shudder round 
the house of Aros. It was the first squall, or prologue, 
of the coming tempest, and as we started and looked 
about us, we found that a gloom, like the approach of 
evening, had settled round the house. 

^'God pity all poor folks at sea!'* she said. "We'll 
see no more of my father till the morrow's morning.*' 

And then she told me, as we sat by the fire and 
hearkened to the rising gusts, of how this change had 
fallen upon my uncle. All last winter he had been dark 
and fitful in his mind. Whenever the Roost ran high, 
or, as Mary said, whenever the Merry Men were dan- 
cing, he would lie out for hours together on the Head, if 
it were at night, or on the top of Aros by day, watching 
the tumult of the sea, and sweeping the horizon for a sail. 
After February the tenth, when the wealth-bringing 
wreck was cast ashore at Sandag, he had been at first 
unnaturally gay, and his excitement had never fallen in 
degree, but only changed in kind from dark to darker. 
He neglected his work, and kept Rorie idle. They two 
would speak together by the hour at the gable end, in 
guarded tones and with an air of secrecy and almost of 
guilt; and if she questioned either, as at first she some- 
times did, her inquiries were put aside with confusion. 
Since Rorie had first remarked the fish that hung about 
the ferry, his master had never set foot but once upon 
the mainland of the Ross. That once — it was in the 
height of the springs — he had passed dryshod while the 
tide was out; but, having lingered overlong on the far 
side, found himself cut off from Aros by the returning 
waters. It was with a shriek of agony that he had 
leaped across the gut> and he had reached home there- 



THE MERRY MEN 337 

after in a fever-fit of fear. A fear of the sea, a constant 
haunting thought of the sea, appeared in his talk and 
devotions, and even in his looks when he was silent. 

Rorie alone came in to supper; but a little later my 
uncle appeared, took a bottle under his arm, put some 
bread in his pocket, and set forth again to his outlook, 
followed this time by Rorie. I heard that the schooner 
w^as losing ground, but the crew were still fighting every 
inch with hopeless ingenuity and courage; and the news 
filled my mind with, blackness. 

A little after sundown the full fury of the gale broke 
forth, such a gale as I have never seen in summer, nor, 
seeing how swiftly it had come, even in winter. Mary 
and I sat in silence, the house quaking overhead, the 
tempest howling without, the fire between us sputter- 
ing with rain drops. Our thoughts were far away with 
the poor fellows on the schooner, or my not less unhappy 
uncle, houseless on the promontory; and yet ever and 
again we were startled back to ourselves, when the wind 
would rise and strike the gable like a solid body, or sud- 
denly fall and draw av/ay, so that the fire leaped into 
flame and our hearts bounded in our sides. Now the 
storm in its might would seize and shake the four corners 
of the roof, roaring like Leviathan in anger. Anon, in 
a lull, cold eddies of tempest moved shudderingly in the 
room, lifting the hair upon our heads and passing between 
us as we sat. And again the wind would break forth in 
a chorus of melancholy sounds, hooting low in the chim- 
ney, wailing with flutelike softness round the house. 

It was perhaps eight o^clock when Rorie came in and 
pulled me mysteriously to the door. My uncle, it ap- 
peared, had frightened even his constant comrade; and 
Rorie, uneasy at his extravagance, prayed me to come 
out and share the watch. I hastened to do as I was asked; 
the more readily, as what with fear and horror, and the 



338 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

electrical tension of the night, I was myself restless and 
disposed for action. I told Mary to be under no alarm, 
for I should be a safeguard on her father; and wrapping 
myself warmly in a plaid, I followed Rorie into the open 
air. 

The night, though we were so little past midsummer, 
was as dark as January. Intervals of a groping twilight 
alternated with spells of utter blackness; and it was im- 
possible to trace the reason of these changes in the fly- 
ing horror of the sky. The wind blew the breath out of 
a man's nostrils; all heaven seemed to thunder overhead 
like one huge sail; and when there fell a momentary 
lull on Aros, we could hear the gusts dismally sweeping 
in the distance. Over all the lowlands of the Ross, the 
wind must have blown as fierce as on the open sea; and 
God only knows the uproar that was raging around the 
head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets of mingled spray and rain 
were driven in our faces. All round the isle of Aros the 
surf, with an incessant, hammering thunder, beat upon 
the reefs and beaches. Now louder in one place, now 
lower in another, like the combinations of orchestral 
music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for 
a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could 
hear the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermit- 
tent roaring of the Merry Men. At that hour, there 
flashed into my mind the reason of the name that they 
were called. For the noise of them seemed almost mirth- 
ful, as it out-topped the other noises of the night; or if 
not mirthful, yet instinct with a portentous joviality. 
Nay, and it seemed even human. As when savage men 
have drunk away their reason, and, discarding speech, 
bawl together in their madness by the hour; so, to my ears 
these deadly breakers shouted by Aros in the night. 

Arm in arm, and staggering against the wind, Rorie 
and I won every yard of ground with conscious effort. 



THE MERRY MEN 339 

We slipped on the wet sod, we fell together sprawling on 
the rocks. Bruised, drenched, beaten, and breathless, 
it must have taken us near half an hour to get from the 
house down to the Head that overlooks the Roost. 
There, it seemed, was my uncle's favourite observatory. 
Right in the face of it, where the cliff is highest and most 
sheer, a hump of earth, like a parapet, makes a place of 
shelter from the common winds, where a man may sit 
in quiet and see the tide and the mad billows contending 
at his feet. As he might look down from the window of 
a house upon some street disturbance, so, from this post, 
he looks down upon the tumbling of the Merry Men. 
On such a night, of course, he peers upon a world of 
blackness, where the waters wheel and boil, where the 
waves joust together with the noise of an explosion, 
and the foam towers and vanishes in the twinkling of an 
eye. Never before had I seen the Merry Men thus 
violent. The fury, height and transiency of their spout- 
ings was a thing to be seen and not -recounted. High 
over our heads on the cliff rose their white columns 
in the darkness; and the same instant, like phantoms, 
they were gone. Sometimes three at a time would thus 
aspire and vanish; sometimes a gust took them, and the 
spray would fall about us, heavy as a wave. And yet 
the spectacle was rather maddening in its levity than 
impressive by its force. Thought was beaten down by 
the confounding uproar; a gleeful vacancy possessed 
the brains of men, a state akin to madness; and I found 
myself at times following the dance of the Merry Men as 
it were a tune upon a jigging instrument. 

I first caught sight of my uncle when we were still 
some yards away in one of the flying glimpses of twi- 
light that checkered the pitch darkness of the night. 
He was standing up behind the parapet, his head thrown 
back and the bottle to his mouth. As he put it down. 



340 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

he saw and recognised us with a toss of one hand fleer- 
ingly above his head. 

"Has he been drinking?" shouted I to Rorie. 

"He will aye be drunk when the wind blaws," re- 
turned Rorie in the same high key, and it was all that I 
could do to hear him. 

"Then — was he so — in February?" I inquired. 

Rorie's "Ay" was a cause of joy to me. The murder, 
then, had not sprung in cold blood from calculation; it 
was an act of madness no more to be condemned than to 
be pardoned. My uncle was a dangerous mad-man, if 
you will, but he was not cruel and base as I had feared. 
Yet what a scene for a carouse, what an incredible vice, 
was this that the poor man had chosen! I have always 
thought drunkenness a wild and almost fearful pleasure, 
rather demoniacal than human; but drunkenness, out 
here in the roaring blackness, on the edge of a cliff above 
that hell of waters, the man's head spinning like the 
Roost, his foot tottering on the edge of death, his ear 
watching for the signs of shipwreck, surely that, if it 
were credible in any one, was morally impossible in a 
man like my uncle, whose mind was set upon a damna- 
tory creed and haunted by the darkest superstitions. 
Yet so it was; and, as were ached the bight ^ of shelter 
and could breathe again, I saw the man's eyes shining 
in the night with an unholy glimmer. 

"Eh, Charlie, man, it's grand!" he cried. "See to 
them!" he continued, dragging me to the edge of the 
abyss from whence arose that deafening clamour and 
those clouds of spray; "see to them dancin', man! Is 
that no wicked?" 

He pronounced the word with gusto, and I thought 
it suited with the scene. 

** They 're yowlin' for thon schooner/' he went on, his 
* Bend in the cliff. 



THE MERRY MEN 341 

thin, insane voice clearly audible in the shelter of the 
bank, " an' she 's comin' aye nearer, aye nearer, aye 
nearer an' nearer an' nearer; an' they ken 't, the folk 
kens it, they ken weel it 's by wi' them. Charlie, lad, 
they 're a' drunk in yon schooner, a' dozened wi' drink. 
They were a' drunk in the Christ-Anna, at the hinder 
end. There 's nane could droon at sea wantin' the 
brandy. Hoot awa, what do you ken?" with a sudden 
blast of anger. "I tell ye, it cannae be; they daurnae 
droon withoot it. Ha'e," holding out the bottle, "tak' 
a sowp." 

I was about to refuse, but Rorie touched me as if in 
warning; and indeed I had already thought better of the 
movement. I took the bottle, therefore, and not only 
drank freely myself, but contrived to spill even more as 
I was doing so. It was pure spirit, and almost strangled 
me to swallow. My kinsman did not observe the loss, 
but, once more throwing back his head, drained the re- 
mainder to the dregs. Then, with a loud laugh, he cast 
the bottle forth among the Merry Men, who seemed to 
leap up, shouting, to receive it. 

"Ha'e, bairns!" he cried, "there's your han'sel.* 
Ye '11 get bonnier nor that, or morning." 

Suddenly, out in the black night before us, and not 
two hundred yards away, we heard, at a moment when 
the wind was silent, the clear note of a human voice. 
Instantly the wind swept howling down upon the Head, 
and the Roost bellowed, and churned, and danced with 
a new fury. But we had heard the sound, and we knew, 
with agony, that this was the doomed ship now close on 
ruin, and that what we had heard was the voice of her 
master issuing his last command. Crouching together 
on the edge, we waited, straining every sense, for the in- 
evitable end. It was long, however, and to us it seemed 

^ Gift. 



342 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

like ages, ere the schooner suddenly appeared for one 
brief instant, relieved against a tower of glimmering 
foam. I still see her reefed mainsail flapping loose, as 
the boom fell heavily across the deck; I still see the 
black outline of the hull, and still think I can distinguish 
the figure of a man stretched upon the tiller. Yet the 
whole sight we had of her passed swifter than lightning; 
the very wave that disclosed her fell burying her for 
ever; the mingled cry of many voices at the point of 
death rose and was quenched in the roaring of the Merry 
Men. And with that the tragedy was at an end. The 
strong ship, with all her gear, and the lamp perhaps still 
burning in the cabin, the lives of so many men, precious 
surely to others, dear, at least, as heaven to themselves, 
had all, in that one moment, gone down into the surging 
waters. They were gone like a dream. And the wind 
still ran and shouted, and the senseless waters in the 
Roost still leaped and tumbled as before. 

How long we lay there together, we three, speechless 
and motionless, is more than I can tell, but it must have 
been for long. At length, one by one, and almost 
mechanically, we crawled back into the shelter of the 
bank. As I lay against the parapet, wholly wretched 
and not entirely master of my mind, I could hear my 
kinsman maundering to himself in an altered and 
melancholy mood. Now he would repeat to himself 
with maudlin iteration, "Sic a fecht as they had — sic 
a sair fecht as they had, puir lads, puir lads!" and anon 
he would bewail that "a' the gear was as gude 's tint," ^ 
because the ship had gone down among the Merry Men 
instead of stranding on the shore; and throughout, the 
name — the Christ-Anna — would come and go in his 
divagations, pronounced with shuddering awe. The 
storm all this time was rapidly abating. In half an hour 

* Lost. 



THE MERRY MEN 343 

the wind had fallen to a breeze, and the change was 
accompanied or caused by a heavy, cold, and plumping 
rain. I must then have fallen asleep, and when I came 
to myself, drenched, stiff, and unrefreshed, day had 
already broken, grey, wet, discomfortable day; the wind 
blew in faint and shifting capfuls, the tide was out, the 
Roost was at its lowest, and only the strong beating surf 
round all the coasts of Aros remained to witness of the 
furies of the night. 

CHAPTER V 

A MAN OUT OF THE SEA 

RoRiE set out for the house in search of warmth and 
breakfast; but my uncle was bent upon examining the 
shores of Aros, and I felt it a part of duty to accom- 
pany him throughout. He was now docile and quiet, 
but tremulous and weak in mind and body; and it was 
with the eagerness of a child that he pursued his ex- 
ploration. He climbed far down upon the rocks; on 
the beaches, he pursued the retreating breakers. The 
merest broken plank or rag of cordage was a treasure 
in his eyes to be secured at the peril of his life. To see 
him, with weak and stumbling footsteps, expose him- 
self to the pursuit of the surf, or the snares and pitfalls 
of the weedy rock, kept me in a perpetual terror. My 
arm was ready to support him, my hand clutched him 
by the skirt, I helped him to draw his pitiful discoveries 
beyond the reach of the returning wave; a nurse accom- 
panying a child of seven would have had no different 
experience. 

Yet, weakened as he was by the reaction from his 
madness of the night before, the passions that smoul- 
dered in his nature were those of a strong man. His 



344 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

terror of the sea, although conquered for the moment, 
was still undiminished; had the sea been a lake of living 
flames, he could not have shrunk more panically from 
its touch; and once, when his foot slipped and he 
plunged to the midleg into a pool of water, the shriek 
that came up out of his soul was like the cry of death. 
He sat still for a while, panting like a dog, after that; 
but his desire for the spoils of shipwreck triumphed once 
more over his fears; once more he tottered among the 
curded foam; once more he crawled upon the rocks 
among the bursting bubbles; once more his whole heart 
seemed to be set on driftwood; fit, if it was fit for any- 
thing, to throw upon the fire. Pleased as he was with 
what he found, he still incessantly grumbled at his ill- 
fortune. 

"Aros," he said, "is no a place for wrecks ava' — no 
ava\ A^ the years I Ve dwalt here, this ane maks the 
second; and the best o^ the gear clean tint!^* 

" Uncle," said I, for we were now on a stretch of open 
sand, where there was nothing to divert his mind, "I 
saw you last night as I never thought to see you — ^you 
were drunk." 

"Na, na," he said, "no as bad as that. I had been 
drinking, though. And to tell ye the God's truth, it 's 
a thing I cannae mend. There 's nae soberer man than 
me in my ordnar; but when I hear the wind blaw in 
my lug,^ it 's my belief that I gang gyte." ^ 

"You are a religious man," I replied, "and this is 
sin." 

^ Ou," he returned, "if it wasnae sin, I dinnae ken 
that I would care for 't Ye see, man, it 's defiance. 
There 's a sair spang ^ o' the auld sin o' the warld in yon 
sea; it's an unchristian business at the best o 't; an' 
whiles when it gets up, an' the wind skreighs — the wind 

* Ear. 2 Crazy. » Grip. 



THE MERRY MEN 345 

an^ her are a kind of sib/ I 'm thinkin' — an' thae Merry 
Men, the daft eallants, blawin' and lauchin', and puir 
souls in the deid thraws^ warstHn' ^ the leelang nicht wi' 
their bit ships — weel, it comes ower me like a glamour. 
I 'm a deil, I ken 't. But I think naething o' the puir 
sailor lads; I 'm wi' the sea, I 'm just like ane o' her ain 
Merry Men/' 

I thought I should touch him in a joint of his har- 
ness. I turned me towards the sea; the surf was run- 
ning gaily, wave after wave, with their manes blowing 
behind them, riding one after another up the beach, 
towering, curving, falling one upon another on the 
trampled sand. Without, the salt air, the scared gulls, 
the widespread army of the sea-chargers, neighing to 
each other, as they gathered together to the assault of 
Aros; and close before us, that line on the flat sands 
that, with all their number and their fury, they might 
never pass. 

"Thus far shalt thou go,*' said I, "and no farther.'* 
And then I quoted as solemnly as I was able a verse that 
I had often before fitted to the chorus of the breakers: — 



But yet the Lord that is on high, 

Is more of might by far, 
Than noise of many waters is, 

As great sea billows are. 

" Ay," said my kinsman, " at the hinder end, the Lord 
will triumph; I dinnae misdoobt that. But here on 
earth, even silly men-folk daur Him to His face. It is 
nae wise; I am nae sayin' that it 's wise; but it 's the 
pride of the eye, and it 's the lust o' life, an' it 's the wale* 
o' pleesures." 

* Relatives. ' In the throes of death. 

'Struggling. * Choice. 



346 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

I said no more, for we had now begun to cross a neck 
of land that lay between us and Sandag;and I withheld 
my last appeal to the man's better reason till we should 
stand upon the spot associated with his crime. Nor did 
he pursue the subject; but he walked beside me with a 
firmer step. The call that I had made upon his mind 
acted like a stimulant, and I could see that he had for- 
gotten his search for worthless jetsam, in a profound, 
gloomy, and yet stirring train of thought. In three or 
four minutes we had topped the brae and begun to go 
down upon Sandag. The wreck had been roughly 
handled by the sea; the stem had been spun round and 
dragged a little lower down; and perhaps the stern had 
been forced a little higher, for the two parts now lay 
entirely separate on the beach. When we came to the 
grave I stopped, uncovered my head in the thick rain, 
and, looking my kinsman in the face, addressed him. 

"A man," said I, "was in God's providence suffered 
to escape from mortal dangers; he was poor, he was 
naked, he was wet, he was weary, he was a stranger; he 
had every claim upon the bowels of your compassion; 
it may be that he was the salt of the earth, holy, helpful, 
and kind; it may be he was a man laden with iniquities 
to whom death was the beginning of torment. I ask 
you in the sight of heaven : Gordon Darnaway, where is 
the man for whom Christ died?" 

He started visibly at the last words; but there came 
no answer, and his face expressed no feeling but a vague 
alarm. 

"You were my father's brother," I continued; "you 
have taught me to count your house as if it were my 
father's house; and we are both sinful men walking be- 
fore the Lord among the sins and dangers of this life. 
It is by our evil that God leads us into good ; we sin, I 
dare not say by His temptation, but I must say with 



THE MERRY MEN 347 

His consent; and to any but the brutish man his sins 
are the beginning of wisdom. God has warned you by 
this crime; He warns you still by the bloody grave be- 
tween our feet; and if there shall follow no repentance, 
no improvement, no return to Him, what can we look for 
but the following of some memorable judgment?'^ 

Even as I spoke the words, the eyes of my uncle wan- 
dered from my face. A change fell upon his looks that 
cannot be described; his features seemed to dwindle in 
size, the colour faded from his cheeks, one hand rose 
waveringly and pointed over my shoulder into the dis- 
tance, and the oft-repeated name fell once more from 
his lips: "The Christ-Anna!'' 

I turned; and if I was not appalled to the same degree, 
as I return thanks to Heaven that I had not the cause, 
I was still startled by the sight that met my eyes. The 
form of a man stood upright on the cabin-hutch of the 
wrecked ship; his back was towards us; he appeared to 
be scanning the oflBng with shaded eyes, and his figure 
was relieved to its full height, which was plainly very 
great, against the sea and sky. I have said a thousand 
times that I am not superstitious; but at that moment, 
with my mind running upon death and sin, the unex- 
plained appearance of a stranger on that sea-girt, solitary 
island filled me with a surprise that bordered close on 
terror. It seemed scarce possible that any human soul 
should have come ashore alive in such a sea as had raged 
last night along the coasts of Aros; and the only vessel 
within miles had gone down before our eyes among the 
Merry Men. I was assailed wuth doubts that made sus- 
pense unbearable, and, to put the matter to the touch at 
once, stepped forward and hailed the figure like a ship. 

He turned about, and I thought he started to behold 
us. At this my courage instantly revived, and I called 
and signed to him to draw near, and he, on his part, 



348 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

dropped immediately to the sands, and began slowly to 
approach, with many stops and hesitations. At each 
repeated mark of the man's uneasiness I grew the more 
confident myself; and I advanced another step, encour- 
aging him as I did so with my head and hand. It was 
plain the castaway had heard indifferent accounts of our 
island hospitality; and indeed, about this time, the peo- 
ple farther north had a sorry reputation. 

"Why,'' I said, "the man is black!" 

And just at that moment, in a voice that I could scarce 
have recognised, my kinsman began swearing and pray- 
ing in a mingled stream. I looked at him; he had 
fallen on his knees, his face was agonised; at each step 
of the castaway's the pitch of his voice rose, the volu- 
bility of his utterance and the fervour of his language re- 
doubled. I call it prayer, for it was addressed to God; 
but surely no such ranting incongruities were ever before 
addressed to the Creator by a creature: surely if prayer 
can be a sin, this mad harangue was sinful. I ran to 
my kinsman, I seized him by the shoulders, I dragged 
him to his feet. 

"Silence, man," said I, "respect your God in words, 
if not in action. Here, on the very scene of your trans- 
gressions. He sends you an occasion of atonement. For- 
ward and embrace it; welcome like a father yon creature 
who comes trembling to your mercy." 

With that, I tried to force him towards the black; but 
he felled me to the ground, burst from my grasp, leav- 
ing the shoulder of his jacket, and fled up the hillside 
towards the top of Aros like a deer. I staggered to my 
feet again, bruised and somewhat stunned; the negro 
had paused in surprise, perhaps in terror, some halfway 
between me and the wreck; my uncle was already far 
away, bounding from rock to rock; and I thus found 
myself torn for a time between two duties. But I judged, 



THE MERRY MEN 349 

and I pray Heaven that I judged rightly, in favour of 
the poor wretch upon the sands; his misfortune was at 
least not plainly of his own creation; it was one, besides, 
that I could certainly relieve; and I had begun by that 
time to regard my uncle as an incurable and dismal 
lunatic. I advanced accordingly towards the black, 
who now awaited my approach with folded arms, like 
one prepared for either destiny. As I came nearer, he 
reached forth his hand with a great gesture, such as I 
had seen from the pulpit, and spoke to me in something 
of a pulpit voice, but not a word was comprehensible. 
I tried him first in English, then in Gaelic, both in vain ; 
so that it was clear we must rely upon the tongue of looks 
and gestures. Thereupon I signed to him to follow me, 
which he did readily and with a grave obeisance like a 
fallen king; all the while there had come no shade of 
alteration in his face, neither of anxiety while he was 
still waiting, nor of relief now that he was reassured; if 
he were a slave, as I supposed, I could not but judge he 
must have fallen from some high place in his own coun- 
try, and fallen as he was, I could not but admire his 
bearing. As we passed the grave, I paused and raised 
my hands and eyes to heaven in token of respect and 
sorrow for the dead; and he, as if in answer, bowed low 
and spread his hands abroad; it was a strange motion, 
but done like a thing of common custom; and I supposed 
it was ceremonial in the land from which he came. At 
the same time he pointed to my uncle, whom we could 
just see perched upon a knoll, and touched his head to 
indicate that he was mad. 

We took the long way round the shore, for I feared to 
excite my uncle if we struck across the island; and as 
we walked, I had time enough to mature the little dra- 
matic exhibition by which I hoped to satisfy my doubts. 
Accordingly, pausing on a rock, I proceeded to imitate 



350 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

before the negro the action of the man whom I had seen 
the day before taking bearings with the compass at 
Sandag. He understood me at once, and, taking the 
imitation out of my hands, showed me where the boat 
was, pointed out seaward as if to indicate the position of 
the schooner, and then down along the edge of the rock 
with the words ^' Espirito Santo,^^ strangely pronounced, 
but clear enough for recognition. I had thus been right 
in my conjecture; the pretended historical inquiry had 
been but a cloak for treasure-hunting; the man who had 
played Dr. Robertson was the same as the foreigner who 
visited Grisapol in spring, and now, with many others, 
lay dead under the Roost of Aros: there had their greed 
brought them, there should their bones be tossed for 
evermore. In the meantime the black continued his 
imitation of the scene, now looking up skyward as though 
watching the approach of the storm; now, in the char- 
acter of a seaman, waving the rest to come aboard; now 
as an officer, running along the rock and entering the 
boat; and anon bending over imaginary oars with the 
air of a hurried boatman; but all with the same solemnity 
of manner, so that I was never even moved to smile. 
Lastly, he indicated to me, by a pantomime not to be 
described in words, how he himself had gone up to ex- 
amine the stranded wreck, and, to his grief and indigna- 
tion, had been deserted by his comrades; and thereupon 
folded his arms once more, and stooped his head, like 
one accepting fate. 

The mystery of his presence being thus solved for me, 
I explained to him by means of a sketch the fate of the 
vessel and of all aboard her. He showed no surprise 
nor sorrow, and, with a sudden lifting of his open hand, 
seemed to dismiss his former friends or masters (which- 
ever they had been) into God's pleasure. Respect came 
upon me and grew stronger, the more I observed him; 



THE MERRY MEN 351 

I saw he had a powerful mind and a sober and 
severe character, such as I loved to commune with; 
and before we reached the house of Aros I had al- 
most forgotten, and wholly forgiven him, his uncanny 
colour. 

To Mary I told all that had passed without suppres- 
sion, though I own my heart failed me; but I did wrong 
to doubt her sense of justice. 

" You did the right," she said. " God^s will be done.'' 
And she set out meat for us at once. 

As. soon as I was satisfied, I bade Rorie keep an eye 
upon the castaway, who was still eating, and set forth 
again myself to find my uncle. I had not gone far before 
I saw him sitting in the same place, upon the very top- 
most knoll, and seemingly in the same attitude as when 
I had last observed him. From that point, as I have 
said, the most of Aros and the neighbouring Ross would 
be spread below him like a map; and it was plain that 
he kept a bright look-out in all directions, for my head 
had scarcely risen above the summit of the first ascent 
before he had leaped to his feet and turned as if to face 
me. I hailed him at once, as well as I was able, in the 
same tones and words as I had often used before, when 
I had come to summon him to dinner. He made not 
so much as a movement in reply. I passed on a little 
farther, and again tried parley, with the same result. 
But when I began a second time to advance, his insane 
fears blazed up again, and still in dead silence, but with 
incredible speed, he began to flee from before me along 
the rocky summit of the hill. An hour before, he had 
been dead weary, and I had been comparatively active. 
But now his strength was recruited by the fervour of in- 
sanity, and it would have been vain for me to dream of 
pursuit. Nay, the very attempt, I thought, might have 
inflamed his terrors, and thus increased the miseries of 



352 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

our position. And I had nothing left but to turn home- 
ward and make my sad report to Mary. 

She heard it, as she had heard the first, with a con- 
cerned composure, and, bidding me he down and take 
that rest of which I stood so much in need, set forth 
herself in quest of her misguided father. At that age it 
would have been a strange thing that put me from either 
meat or sleep; I slept long and deep; and it was already 
long past noon before I awoke and came downstairs into 
the kitchen. Mary, Rorie, and the black castaway v/ere 
seated about the fire in silence; and I could see that 
Mary had been weeping. There was cause enough, as 
I soon learned, for tears. First she, and then Rorie, had 
been forth to seek my uncle; each in turn had found 
him perched upon the hill-top, and from each in turn he 
had silently and swiftly fled. Rorie had tried to chase 
him, but in vain; madness lent a new vigour to his 
bounds; he sprang from rock to rock over the widest 
gullies; he scoured like the wind along the hill-tops; he 
doubled and twisted like a hare before the dogs; and 
Rorie at length gave in; and the last that he saw, my 
uncle was seated as before upon the crest of Aros. Even 
during the hottest excitement of the chase, even when 
the fleet-footed servant had come, for a moment, very 
near to capture him, the poor lunatic had uttered not a 
sound. He fled, and he was silent, like a beast; and 
this silence had terrified his pursuer. 

There was something heart-breaking in the situation. 
How to capture the madman, how to feed him in the 
meanwhile, and what to do with him when he was 
captured, were the three diflSculties that we had to 
solve. 

"The black,'' said I, "is the cause of this attack. It 
may even be his presence in the house that keeps my 
uncle on the hill. We have done the fair thing; he has 



THE MERRY MEN 353 

been fed and warmed under this roof; now I propose 
that Rorie put him across the bay in the coble, and take 
him through the Ross as far as Grisapol/^ 

In this proposal Mary heartily concurred; and bidding 
the black follow us, we all three descended to the pier. 
Certainly, Heaven's will was declared against Gordon 
Darnaway; a thing had happened, never paralleled be- 
fore in Aros; during the storm, the coble had broken 
loose, and, striking on the rough splinters of the pier, 
now lay in four feet of water with one side stove in. 
Three days of work at least would be required to make 
her float. But I was not to be beaten. I led the whole 
party round to where the gut was narrowest, swam to 
the other side, and called to the black to follow me. , He 
signed, with the same clearness and quiet as before, that 
he knew not the art; and there was truth apparent in 
his signals, it would have occurred to none of us to doubt 
his truth; and that hope being over, we must all go back 
even as we came to the house of Aros, the negro walking 
in our midst without embarrassment. 

All we could do that day was to make one more at- 
tempt to communicate with the unhappy madman. 
Again he was visible on his perch; again he fled in silence. 
But food and a great cloak were at least left for his com- 
fort; the rain, besides, had cleared away, and the night 
promised to be even warm. We might compose our- 
selves, we thought, until the morrow; rest was the chief 
requisite, that we might be strengthened for unusual 
exertions; and as none cared to talk, we separated at 
an early hour. 

I lay long awake, planning a campaign for the mor- 
row. I was to place the black on the side of Sandag, 
whence he should head my uncle towards the house; 
Rorie in the west, I on the east, were to complete the 
cordon, as best we might. It seemed to me, the more I 



354 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

recalled the configuration of the island, that it should be 
possible, though hard, to force him down upon the low 
ground along Aros Bay; and once there, even with the 
strength of his madness, ultimate escape was hardly to 
be feared. It was on his terror of the black that I relied; 
for I made sure, however he might run, it would not be 
in the direction of the man whom he supposed to have 
returned from the dead, and thus one point of the com- 
pass at least would be secure. 

When at length I fell asleep, it was to be awakened 
shortly after by a dream of wrecks, black men, and sub- 
marine adventure; and I found myself so shaken and 
fevered that I arose, descended the stair, and stepped 
out before the house. Within, Rorie and the black were 
asleep together in the kitchen; outside was a wonderful 
clear night of stars, with here and there a cloud still 
hanging, last stragglers of the tempest. It was near the 
top of the flood, and the Merry Men were roaring in the 
windless quiet of the night. Never, not even in the 
height of the tempest, had I heard their song with greater 
awe. Now, when the winds were gathered home, when 
the deep was dandling itself back into its summer slum- 
ber, and when the stars rained their gentle light over 
land and sea, the voice of these tide-breakers was still 
raised for havoc. They seemed, indeed, to be a part of 
the world's evil and the tragic side of life. Nor were 
their meaningless vociferations the only sounds that 
broke the silence of the night. For I could hear, now 
shrill and thrilling and now almost'drowned, the note of 
a human voice that accompanied the uproar of the Roost. 
I knew it for my kinsman's; and a great fear fell upon 
me of God's judgments, and the evil in the world. I 
went back again into the darkness of the house as into a 
place of shelter, and lay long upon my bed, pondering 
these mysteries. 



THE MERRY MEN 355 

It was late when I again woke, and I leaped into my 
clothes and hurried to the kitchen. No one was there; 
Rorie and the black had both stealthily departed long 
before; and my heart stood still at the discovery. I 
could rely on Rorie's heart, but I placed no trust in his 
discretion. If he had thus set out without a word, he 
was plainly bent upon some service to my uncle. But 
what service could he hope to render even alone, far less 
in the company of the man in whom my uncle found 
his fears incarnated? Even if I were not already 
too late to prevent some deadly mischief, it was plain 
I must delay no longer. With the thought I was 
out of the house; and often as I have run on the 
rough sides of Aros, I never ran as I did that fatal 
morning. I do not believe I put twelve minutes to the 
whole ascent. 

My uncle was gone from his perch. The basket had 
indeed been torn open and the meat scattered on the 
turf; but, as we found afterwards, no mouthful had 
been tasted; and there was not another trace of hu- 
man existence in that wide field of view. Day had 
already filled the clear heavens; the sun already lighted 
in a rosy bloom upon the crest of Ben Kyaw; but all 
below me the rude knolls of Aros and the shield of 
the sea lay steeped in the clear darkling twilight of 
the dawn. 

*' Rorie!*' I cried; and again " Rorie T' My voice 
died in the silence, but there came no answer back. If 
there were indeed an enterprise afoot to catch my uncle, 
it was plainly not in fleetness of foot, but in dexterity of 
stalking, that the hunters placed their trust. I ran on 
farther, keeping the higher spurs, and looking right and 
left, nor did I pause again till I was on the mount above 
Sandag. I could see the wreck, the uncovered belt of 
sand, the waves idly beating, the long ledge of rocks, 



356 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and on either hand the tumbled knolls, boulders, and 
gullies of the island. But still no human thing. 

At a stride the sunshine fell on Aros, and the shadows 
and colours leaped into being. Not half a moment later, 
below me to the west, sheep began to scatter as in a 
panic. There came a cry. I saw my uncle running. I 
saw the black jump up in hot pursuit; and before I had 
time to understand, Rorie also had appeared, calling 
directions in Gaelic as to a dog herding sheep. 

I took to my heels to interfere, and perhaps I had 
done better to have waited where I was, for I was the 
means of cutting off the madman's last escape. There 
was nothing before him from that moment but the grave, 
the wreck, and the sea in Sandag Bay. And yet heaven 
knows that what I did was for the best. 

My uncle Gordon saw in what direction, horrible to 
him, the chase was driving him. He doubled, darting 
to the right and left; but high as the fever ran in his 
veins, the black was still the swifter. Turn where he 
would, he was still forestalled, still driven towards the 
scene of his crime. Suddenly he began to shriek aloud, 
so that the coast re-echoed; and now both I and Rorie 
were calling on the black to stop. But all was vain, for 
it was written otherwise. The pursuer still ran, the 
chase still sped before him screaming; they avoided the 
grave, and skimmed close past the timbers of the wreck; 
in a breath they had cleared the sand; and still my kins- 
man did not pause, but dashed straight into the surf; 
and the black, now almost within reach, still followed 
swiftly behind him. Rorie and I both stopped, for the 
thing was now beyond the hands of men, and these were 
the decrees of God that came to pass before our eyes. 
There was never a sharper ending. On that steep 
beach they were beyond their depth at a bound; neither 
could swim; the black rose once for a moment with a 



THE MERRY MEN 357 

throttling cry; but the current had them, racing sea- 
ward; and if ever they came up again, which God alone 
can tell, it would be ten mintues after, at the far end of 
Aros Roost, where the sea-birds hover fishing. 



MARKHEIM ' 

"Yes/^ said the dealer, "our windfalls are of various 
kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch 
a dividend on my superior knowledge. Some are dis- 
honest,^^ and here he held up the candle, so that the 
light fell strongly on his visitor, "and in that case,^* he 
continued, "I profit by my virtue." 

Markheim had but just entered from the daylight 
streets, and his eyes had not yet grown familiar with 
the mingled shine and darkness in the shop. At these 
pointed words, and before the near presence of the flame, 
he blinked painfully and looked aside. 

The dealer chuckled. "You come to me on Christ- 
mas Day," he resumed, "when you know that I am 
alone i^ my house, put up my shutters, and make a 
point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay 
for that; you will have to pay for my loss of time, when 
I should be balancing my books; you will have to pay, 
besides, for a kind of manner that I remark in you 
to-day very strongly. I am the essence of discretion, 
and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer 
cannot look me in the eye, he has to pay for it." The 
dealer once more chuckled; and then, changing to his 
usual business voice, though still with a note of irony, 
"You can give, as usual, a clear account of how you 

^ Written in Bournemouth, in 1884, when Stevenson's body was 
enfeebled by illness, but his mind strongly wrestling with the 
problem of the duality of our moral nature, a problem afterwards 
worked out with more completeness in The Strange Case of Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr, Hyde. It was published in the Christmas number 
of Unwinds Annual, in 1885; and afterwards in the volume entitled 
The Merry Men, and Other Tales, 1887. 

358 



MARKHEIM 359 

came into the possession of the object ?^^ he continued. 
"Still your uncle's cabinet? A remarkable collector, 
sir!" 

And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood al- 
most on tip-toe, looking over the top of his gold spec- 
tacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. 
Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, 
and a touch of horror. 

"This time,'^ said he, "you are in error. I have not 
come to sell, but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; 
my uncle's cabinet is bare to the wainscot; even were it 
still intact, I have done well on the Stock Exchange, and 
should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my 
errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas 
present for a lady," he continued, waxing more fluent as 
he struck into the speech he had prepared; "and cer- 
tainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you 
upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected 
yesterday; I must produce my little compliment at 
dinner; and, as you very well know, a rich marriage is 
not a thing to be neglected." 

There followed a pause, during which the dealer 
seemed to weigh this statement incredulously. The tick- 
ing of many clocks among the curious lumber of the shop, 
and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare, 
filled up the interval of silence. 

"Well, sir," said the dealer, "be it so. You are an 
old customer after all; and if, as you say, you have the 
chance of a good marriage, far be it from me to be 
an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady now," he 
went on, "this hand glass — fifteenth century, warranted; 
comes from a good collection, too; but I reserve the 
name, in the interests of my customer, who was just like 
yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a re- 
markable collector," 



360 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting 
voice, had stooped to take the object from its place; and, 
as he had done so, a shock had passed through Mark- 
heim, a start both of hand and foot, a sudden leap of 
many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as 
swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain 
trembling of the hand that now received the glass. 

"A glass,^^ he said hoarsely, and then paused, and re- 
peated it more clearly. ^'A glass? For Christmas? 
Surely not?'' 

"And why not?'' cried the dealer. "Why not a 
glass?" 

Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable 
expression. "You ask me why not?" he said. "Why, 
look here — look in it — look at yourself! Do you like to 
see it? No! nor I — nor any man." 

The little man had jumped back when Markheim 
had so suddenly confronted him with the mirror; but 
now, perceiving there was nothing worse on hand, he 
chuckled. "Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard 
favoured," said he. 

"I ask you," said Markheim, "for a Christmas 
present, and you give me this — this damned reminder of 
years, and sins and follies — this hand-conscience! Did 
you mean it ? Had you a thought in your mind ? Tell 
me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me 
about yourself. I hazard a guess now, that you are in 
secret a very charitable man?" 

The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was 
very odd, Markheim did not appear to be laughing; 
there was something in his face like an eager sparkle of 
hope, but nothing of mirth. 

"What are you driving at?" the dealer asked. 

"Not charitable?" returned the other, gloomily. 
"Not charitable; not pious; not scrupulous; unloving. 



MARKHEIM 361 

unbeloved; a hand to get money, a safe to keep it. Is 
that all? Dear- God, man, is that all?" 

"I will tell you what it is," began the dealer, with 
some sharpness, and then broke oflF again into a chuckle. 
" But I see this is a love match of yours, and you have 
been drinking the lady's health." 

^*Ah!" cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. 
"Ah, have you been in love? Tell me about that." 

"I," cried the dealer. "I in love! I never had the 
time, nor have I the time to-day for all this nonsense. 
Will you take the glass?" 

"Where is the hurry?" returned Markheim. "It is ; 
very pleasant to stand here talking; and life is so short 
and insecure that I would not hurry away from any 
pleasure — no, not even from so mild a one as this. We 
should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a 
man at a cliff's edge. Every second is a cliff, if you 
think upon it — a cliff a mile high — high enough, if we 
fall, to dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence 
it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each other; 
why should we wear this mask ? Let us be confidential. 
Who knows, we might become friends ? " 

" I have just one word to say to you," said the dealer. 
" Either make your purchase, or walk out of my shop." 

"True, true," said Markheim. "Enough fooling. To 
business. Show me something else." 

The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace 
the glass upon the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over 
his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, 
with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat; he drew 
himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many 
different emotions were depicted together on his face — 
terror, horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical ^ 
repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, 
his teeth looked out. 



\ 



362 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

"This, perhaps, may suit/' observed the dealer; and 
then, as he began to re-arise, Markheim bounded from 
behind upon his victim. The long, skewerlike dagger 
flashed and fell. The dealer struggled like a hen, strik- 
ing his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the 
floor in a heap. 

Time had some score of small voices in that shop, 
some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age; 
others garrulous and hurried. All these told out the 
seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the 
passage of a lad's feet, heavily running on the pavement, 
broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Mark- 
heim into the consciousness of his surroundings. He 
looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the 
counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and | 
by that inconsiderable movement, the whole room was / 
filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: < 
the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness \ 
swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces of ] 
the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering 
like images in water. The inner door stood ajar, and 
peered into that leaguer^ of shadows with a long slit of 
daylight like a pointing finger. 

From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim's eyes 
returned to the body of his victim, where it lay both 
humped and sprawling, incredibly small and strangely 
meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly clothes, in 
that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much saw- 
dust. Markheim had feared to see it, and lo! it was 
nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old 
clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent voices. 
There it must lie; there was none to work the cunning 
hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion — there it 
must lie till it was found. Found! ay, and then? Then 
^ Besieger's camp. 



MARKHEIM 363 

would this dead flesh Hft up a cry that would ring over 
England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit. 
Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. "Time was 
that w^hen the brains were out,^^ he thought; and the 
first word struck into his mind. Time, now that the 
deed was accomplished — time, which had closed for the 
victim, had become instant and momentous for the 
slayer. 

The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and 
then another, with every variety of pace and voice — one 
deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing 
on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz — the clocks 
began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon. 

The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that 
dumb chamber staggered him. He began to bestir him- 
self, going to and fro with the candle, beleaguered by 
moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance re- 
flections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, 
some from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face re- 
peated and repeated, as it were an army of spies; his 
own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of his 
own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding 
quiet. And still as he continued to fill his pockets, his 
mind accused him, with a sickening iteration, of the 
thousand faults of his design. He should have chosen 
a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi; 
he should not have used a knife; he should have been 
more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, 
and not killed him; he should have been more bold, 
and killed the servant also; he should have done all 
things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant 
toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, 
to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the 
irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activ- 
ity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted 



364 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with ^ 
riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his 
shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; 
or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, 
the gallows, and the black cofiin. 

Terror of the people in the street sat down before his 
mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he 
thought, but that some rumour of the struggle must have 
reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity; and 
now, in all the neighbouring houses, he divined them 
sitting motionless and with uplifted ear — solitary people, 
condemned to spend Chriltmas dwelling alone on mem- 
ories of the past, and now startingly recalled from that 
tender exercise; happy family parties, struck into silence 
round the table, the mother still with raised finger: every 
degree and age and humour, but all, by their own hearts, 
prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to 
hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could not 
move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets 
rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the bigness 
of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And 
then, again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the 
very silence of the place appeared a source of peril, and 
a thing to strike and freeze the passer-by; and he would 
step more boldly, and bustle aloud among the contents 
of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado, the 
movements of a busy man at ease in his own house. 

But he was now so pulled about by different alarms 
that, while one portion of his mind was still alert and 
cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One 
hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his 
credulity. The neighbour hearkening with white face 
beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible 
surmise on the pavement — these could at worst suspect, 
they could not know; through the brick walls and shut- 



MARKHEIM 365 

tered windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, 
within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he 
had watched the servant set forth sweethearting, in her 
poor best, "out for the day^' written in every ribbon and 
smile. Yes, he was alone, of course; and yet, in the 
bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear a 
stir of delicate footing — he was surely conscious, inex- 
plicably conscious of some presence. Ay, surely; to 
every room and corner of the house his imagination fol- 
lowed it; and now it was a faceless thing, and yet had 
eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself; 
and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer, re- 
inspired with cunning and hatred. 

At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the 
open door which still seemed to repel his eyes. The house 
was tall, the skylight small and dirty, the day blind with 
fog; and the light that filtered down to the ground story 
was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the threshold 
of the shop. And yet, in that strip of doubtful bright- 
ness, did there not hang wavering a shadow ? 

Suddenly, from the street outside, a very jovial gentle- 
man began to beat with a staff on the shop-door, accom- 
panying his blows with shouts and railleries in which 
the dealer was continually called upon by name. Mark- 
heim, smitten into ice glanced at the dead man. But 
no! he lay quite still; he was fled away far beyond ear- 
shot of these blows and shoutings; he was sunk beneath 
seas of silence; and his name, which would once have 
caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had be- 
come an empty sound. And presently the jovial gentle- 
man desisted from his knocking and departed. 

Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be 
done, to get forth from this accusing neighbourhood, to 
plunge into_aJbath of London mu^^ and to reach, 

on the other side of day, that haven of safety and appar- 



366 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ent innocence — his bed. One visitor had come: at any 
moment another might follow and be more obstinate. 
To have done the deed, and yet not to reap the profit, 
would be too abhorrent a failure. The money, that was 
now Markheim's concern; and as a means to that, the 
keys. 

He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, where 
the shadow was still lingering and shivering; and with 
no conscious repugnance of the mind, yet with a tremour 
of the belly, he drew near the body of his victim. The 
human character had quite departed. Like a suit half- 
.^tuffed with bran, the limbs lay scattered, the trunk 
doubled, on the floor; and yet the thing repelled him. 
Although so dingy and inconsiderable to the eye, he 
feared it might have more significance to the touch. He 
took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its back. 
It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if 
they had been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The 
face was robbed of all expression; but it was as pale as 
wax, and shockingly smeared with blood about one 
temple. That was, for Markheim, the one displeasing 
circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to 
a certain fair day in a fisher's village: a grey day, a 
piping wind, a crowd upon the street, the blare of brasses, 
the booming of drums, the nasal voice of a ballad singer; 
and a boy going to and fro, buried over head in the crowd 
and divided between interest and fear, until, coming 
out upon the chief place of concourse, he beheld a booth 
and a great screen with pictures, dismally designed, gar- 
ishly coloured: Brownrigg with her apprentice; the 
Mannings with their murdered guest; Weare in the 
death-grip of Thurtell; and a score besides of famous 
crimes. The thing was as clear as an illusion; he was 
once again that little boy; he was looking once again, 
and with the same sense of physical revolt, at these vile 



MARKHEIM 367 

pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the 
drums, A bar of that day's music returned upon his 
memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came 
over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden weakness of the 
joints, which he must instantly resist and conquer. 

He judged it more prudent to confront than to flee 
from these considerations; looking the more hardily in 
the dead face, bending his mind to realise the nature 
and greatness of his crime. So little a while ago that 
face had moved with every change of sentiment, that 
pale mouth had spoken, that body had been all on fire 
with governable energies; and now, and by his act, that 
piece of life had been arrested, as the horologist, with 
interjected finger, arrests the beating of the clock. So 
he reasoned in vain; he could rise to no more remorse- 
ful consciousness; the same heart which had shuddered 
before the painted effigies of crime, looked on its reality 
unmoved. At best, he felt a gleam of pity for one who 
had been endowed in vain with all those faculties that 
can make the world a garden of enchantment, one who 
had never lived and who was now dead. But of peni- 
tence, no, not a tremour. 

With that, shaking himself clear of these considera- 
tions, he found the keys and advanced towards the open 
door of the shop. Outside, it had begun to rain smartly; 
and the sound of the shower upon the roof had banished 
silence. Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of 
the house were haunted by an incessant echoing, which 
filled the ear and mingled with the ticking of the clocks. 
And, as Markheim approached the door, he seemed to 
hear, in answer to his own cautious tread, the steps of 
another foot withdrawing up the stair. The shadow 
still palpitated loosely on the threshold. He threw a 
ton's weight of resolve upon his muscles, and drew back 
the door. 



368 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

The faint, foggy daylight glimmered dimly on the 
bare floor and stairs; on the bright suit of armour 
posted, halbert in hand, upon the landing; and on the 
dark wood-carvings, and framed pictures that hung 
against the yellow panels of the wainscot. So loud was 
the beating of the rain through all the house that, in 
Markheim's ears, it began to be distinguished into many 
different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the tread of 
regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money 
in the counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily 
ajar, appeared to mingle with the patter of the drops 
upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the 
pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him 
to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted 
and begirt by presences. He heard them moving in the 
upper chambers; from the shop, he heard the dead man 
getting to his legs; and as he began with a great effort 
to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and fol- 
lowed stealthily behind. If he were but deaf, he thought, 
how tranquilly he would possess his soul! And then 
again, and hearkening with ever fresh attention, he 
blessed himself for that unresting sense which held the 
outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life. His 
head turned continually on his neck; his eyes, which 
seemed starting from their orbits, scouted on every side, 
and on every side were half-rewarded as with the tail of 
something nameless vanishing. The four-and-twenty 
steps to the first floor were four-and-twenty agonies. 

On that first storey, the ^oprs stood ajar, three of 
them like three ambushes, shaking his nerves like the 
throats of cannon. He could never again, he felt, be 
sufficiently immured and fortified from men's observing 
eyes; he longed to be home, girt in by walls, buried 
among bedclothes, and invisible to all but God. And at 
that thought he wondered a little, recollecting tales of 



MARKHEIM 369 

other murderers and the fear they were said to enter- 
tain of heavenly' avengers. It was not so, at least, with 
him. He feared the laws of nature, lest, in their callous 
and immutable procedure, they should preserve some 
damning evidence of his crime. He feared tenfold 
more, with a slavish, superstitious terror, some scission^ 
in the continuity of man's experience, some wilful ille- 
gality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending 
on the rules, calculating consequence from cause; and 
what if nature, as the defeated tyrant overthrew the 
chess-board, should break the mould of their succession ? 
The like had befallen Napoleon (so writers said) when 
the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like 
might befall Markheim: the solid walls might become 
transparent and ^eveal his doings like those of bees in a 
glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot 
like quicksands and detain him in their clutch; ay, and 
there were soberer accidents that might destroy him: if, 
for instance, the house should fall and imprison him 
beside the body of his victim; or the house next door 
should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all 
sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, these 
things might be called the hands of God reached forth 
against sin. But about God himself he was at ease; his 
act was doubtless exceptional, but so were his excuses, 
which God knew; it was there, and not among men, 
that he felt sure of justice. 

When he had got safe into the drawing-room, and 
shut the door behind him, he was aware of a respite 
from alarms. The room was quite dismantled, uncar- 
peted besides, and strewn with packing-cases and incon- 
gruous furniture; several great pier-glasses, in which he 
beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on a stage; 
many pictures, framed and unframed, standing with 
^ Literally cutting apart; here in the sense of gap. 



370 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton sideboard, a cab- 
inet of marquetry, and a great old bed, with tapestrv 
hangings. The windows opened to the floor; but by 
great good fortune the lower part of the shutters had 
been closed, and this concealed him from the neighbours. 
Here, then, Markheim drew in a packing-case before 
the cabinet, and began to search among the keys. It 
was a long business, for there were many; and it was 
irksome, besides; for, after all, there might be nothing 
in the cabinet, and time was on the wing. But the close- 
ness of the occupation sobered him. With the tail of his 
eye he saw the door — even glanced at it from time to 
time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to 
verify the good estate of his defences. But in truth he 
was at peace. The rain falling in the street sounded 
natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the 
notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, 
and the voices of many children took up the air and 
words. How stately, how comfortable was the melody! 
How fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to 
it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his mind was 
thronged with answerable ideas and images; church- 
going children and the pealing of the high organ; chil- 
dren afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on the 
brambly common, kite-fliers in the windy and cloud- 
navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the 
hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of 
summer Sundays, and the high genteel voice of the par- 
son (which he smiled a little to recall) and the painted 
Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the Ten Com- 
mandments in the chancel. 

And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was 
startled to his feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a 
bursting gush of blood, went over him, and then he 
stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted the 



MARKHEIM 371 

stair slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid 
upon the knob, and the lock clicked, and the door 
opened. 

Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he 
knew not, whether the dead man walking, or the official 
ministers of human justice, or some chance witness 
blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows. But 
when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced round 
the room, looked at him, nodded and smiled as if in 
friendly recognition, and then withdrew again, and the 
door closed behind it, his fear broke loose from his con- 
trol in a hoarse cry. At the sound of this the visitant 
returned. 

^'Did you call me?^' he asked, pleasantly, and with 
that he entered the room and closed the door behind him. 

Markheim stood and gazed at him with all his eyes. 
Perhaps there was a film upon his sight, but the outlines 
of the new comer seemed to change and waver like those 
of the idols in the wavering candle-light of the shop; 
and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he 
thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like 
a lump of living terror, there lay in his bosom the con- 
viction that this thing was not of the earth and not of 
God. 

And yet the creature had a strange air of the com- 
monplace, as he stood looking on Markheim with a 
smile; and when he added: "You are looking for the 
money, I believe?" it was in the tones of everyday 
politeness. 

Markheim made no answer. 

"I should warn you," resumed the other, "that the 
maid has left her sweetheart earlier than usual and will 
soon be here. If Mr. Markheim be found in this house, 
I need not describe to him the consequences." 

"You know me?" cried the murderer. 



372 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

The visitor smiled. "You have long been a favour- 
ite of mine/^ he said; "and I have long observed and 
often sought to help jouJ' 

"What are you?'' cried Markheim: "the devil?'' 

"What I may be/' returned the other, "cannot affect 
the service I propose to render you." 

"It can," cried Markheim; "it does! Be helped by 
you? No, never; not by you! You do not know me 
yet; thank God, you do not know me!" 

"I know you," replied the visitant, with a sort of kind 
severity or rather firmness. " I know you to the soul." 

"Know me!" cried Markheim. "Who can do so? 
My life is but a travesty and slander on myself. I have 
lived to belie my nature. All men do; all men are bet- 
ter than this disguise that grows about and stifles them. 
You see each dragged away by life, like one whom 
bravos have seized and muffled in a cloak. If they had 
their own control — if you could see their faces, they 
would be altogether different, they would shine out for 
heroes and saints! I am worse than most; my self is 
more overlaid; my excuse is known to me and God. 
But, had I the time, I could disclose myself." 

"To me?" inquired the visitant. 

"To you before all," returned the murderer. "I sup- 
posed you were intelligent. I thought — since you exist 
— you would prove a reader of the heart. And yet you 
would propose to judge me by my acts! Think of it; 
my acts! I was born and I have lived in a land of giants; 
giants have dragged me by the wrists since I was born 
out of my mother — the giants of circumstance. And 
you would judge me by my acts! But can you not look 
within? Can you not understand that evil is hateful to 
me? Can you not see within me the clear writing of 
conscience, never blurred by any wilful sophistry, al- 
though too often disregarded? Can you not read me 



MARKHEIM 373 

for a thing that surely must be common as humanity — 
the unwiUing sinner ?^^ 

"All this is very feelingly expressed/^ was the reply, 
" but it regards me not. These points of consistency are 
beyond my province, and I care not in the least by what 
compulsion you may have been dragged away, so as you 
are but carried in the right direction. But time flies; 
the servant delays, looking in the faces of the crowd and 
at the pictures on the hoardings, but still she keeps mov- 
ing nearer; and remember, it is as if the gallows itself 
was striding towards you through the Christmas streets! 
Shall I help you; I, who know all? Shall I tell you 
where to find the money?'* 

"For what price?" asked Markheim. 

" I offer you the service for a Christmas gift," returned 
the other. 

Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind 
of bitter triumph. "No," said he, "I will take nothing 
at your hands; if I were dying of thirst, and it was your 
hand that put the pitcher to my lips, I should find the 
courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do 
nothing to commit myself to evil." 

" I have no objection to a death-bed repentance," ob- 
served the visitant. 

"Because you disbelieve their eflScacy!" Markheim 
cried. , 

"I do not say so," returned the other; "but I look on 
these things from a different side, and when the life is 
done my interest falls. The man has lived to serve me, 
to spread black looks under colour of religion, or to sow 
tares in the wheat-field, as you do, in a course of weak 
compliance with desire. Now that he draws so near to 
his deliverance, he can add but one act of service — to re- 
pent, to die smiling, and thus to build up in confidence 
and hope the more timorous of my surviving followers. 



374 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

I am not so hard a master. Try me. Accept my help. 
Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto; please 
yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; 
and when the night begins to fall and the curtains to be 
drawn, I tell you, for your greater comfort, that you will 
find it even easy to compound your quarrel with your 
conscience, and to make a truckling peace with God. I 
came but now from such a death-bed, and the room was 
full of sincere mourners, listening to the man^s last words: 
and when I looked into that face, which had been set as 
a flint against mercy, I found it smiling with hope.^^ 

"And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?^' 
asked Markheim. "Do you think I have no more gen- 
erous aspirations than to sin, and sin, and sin, and, at 
last, sneak into heaven ? My heart rises at the thought. 
Is this, then, your experience of mankind? or is it be- 
cause you find me with red hands that you presume such 
baseness? and is this crime of murder indeed so impious 
as to dry up the very springs of good ?^' 

"Murder is to me no special category," replied the 
other. "All sins are murder, even as all life is war. I 
behold your race, like starving mariners on a raft, 
plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding 
on each other's lives. I follow sins beyond the moment 
of their acting; I find in all that the last consequence is 
death; and to my eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts 
her mother with such taking graces on a question of a 
ball, drips no less visibly with human gore than such a 
murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow sins? I 
follow virtues also; they differ not by the thickness of a 
nail, they are both scythes for the reaping angel of 
Death. Evil, for which I live, consists not in action 
but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the 
bad act, whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough 
down the hurtling cataract of the ages, might yet be 



MARKHEIM 375 

found more blessed than those of the rarest virtues. 
And it is not because you have killed a dealer, but be- 
cause you are Markheim, that I offered to forward your 
escape/^ 

"I will lay my heart open to you," answered Mark- 
heim. "This crime on which you find me is my last. 
On my way to it I have learned many lessons; itself is a 
lesson, a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been 
driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave 
to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust 
virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was 
not so: I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, and out 
of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches — both the 
power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all 
things a free actor in the world; I begin to see myself all 
changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at 
peace. Something comes over me out of the past; some- 
thing of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to 
the sound of the church organ, of what I forecast when 
I shed tears over noble books, or talked, an innocent 
child, with my mother. There lies my life; I have 
wandered a few years, but now I see once more my city 
of destination." 

"You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange, 
I think?" remarked the visitor; "and there, if I mistake 
not, you have already lost some thousands?" 

"Ah," said Markheim, "but this time I have a sure 
thing." 

"This time, again, you will lose," replied the visitor 
quietly. 

"Ah, but I keep back the half!" cried Markheim. 

"That also you will lose," said the other. 

The sweat started upon Markheim's brow. "Well, 
then, what matter?" he exclaimed. "Say it be lost, 
say I am plunged again in poverty, shall one part of me, 



376 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and that the worst, continue until the end to override 
the better ? Evil and good run strong in me, haling me 
both ways. I do not love the one thing, I love all. I 
can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms; 
and though I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity 
is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who 
knows their trials better than myself? I pity and help 
them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; there is no 
good thing nor true thing on earth but I love it from my 
heart. And are my vices only to direct my life, and my 
virtues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of 
the mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts." 

But the visitant raised his finger. "For six-and- 
thirty years that you have been in this world,'' said he, 
"through many changes of fortune and varieties of 
humour, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen 
years ago you would have started at a theft. Three 
years back you would have blenched at the name of 
murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or 
meanness, from which you still recoil ? — five years from 
now I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, down- 
ward, lies your way; nor can anything but death avail 
to stop you." 

" It is true," Markheim said huskily, " I have in some 
degree complied with evil. But it is so with all; the 
very saints, in the mere exercise of living, grow less 
dainty, and take on the tone of their surroundings." 

"I will propound to you one simple question," said 
the other; "and as you answer, I shall read to you your 
moral horoscope. You have grown in many things 
more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any 
account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, 
are you in any one particular, however trifling, more 
difficult to please with your own conduct, or do you go 
in all things with a looser rein ? " 



MARKHEIM 377 

^'In any one?'^ repeated Markheim, with an anguish 
of consideration. "No/' he added, with despair, "in 
none! I have gone down in all." 

" Then,'' said the visitor, " content yourself with what 
you are, for you will never change; and the words of 
your part on this stage are irrevocably written down." 

Markheim stood for a long while silent, and indeed it 
was the visitor who first broke the silence. "That 
being so," he said, "shall I show you the money?" 

"And grace?" cried Markheim. 

"Have you not tried it?" returned the other. "Two 
or three years ago, did I not see you on the platform of 
revival meetings, and was not your voice the loudest in 
the hymn?" 

"It is true," said Markheim; "and I see clearly what 
remains for me by way of duty. I thank you for these 
lessons from my soul; my eyes are opened, and I behold 
myself at last for what I am." 

At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang 
through the house; and the visitant, as though this were 
some concerted signal for which he had been waiting, 
changed at once in his demeanour. 

"The maid!" he cried. "She has returned, as I fore- 
warned you, and there is now before you one more diflfi- 
cult passage. Her master, you must say, is ill; you must 
let her in, with an assured but rather serious countenance 
— no smiles, no overacting, and I promise you success! 
Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dex- 
terity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve 
you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward 
you have the whole evening — the whole night, if need- 
ful — to ransack the treasures of the house and to make 
good your safety. This is help that comes to you with 
the mask of danger. Up!" he cried: "up, friend; your 
life hangs trembling in the scales: up, and act!" 



378 SELECTIONS FROj^I STEVENSON 

Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. ^' If I be 
condemned to evil acts/' he said, " there is still one door 
of freedom open — I can cease from action. If my life 
be an ill thing, I can lay it down. Though I be, as you 
say truly, at the beck of every small temptation, I can 
yet, by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the 
reach of all. My love of good is damned to barrenness; 
it may, and let it be! But I have still my hatred of evil; 
and from that, to your galling disappointment, you 
shall see that I can draw both energy and courage." 

The features of the visitor began to undergo a won- 
derful and lovely change: they brightened and softened 
with a tender triumph; and, even as they brightened, 
faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to 
watch or understand the transformation. He opened 
the door and went downstairs very slowly, thinking to 
himself. His past went soberly before him; he beheld 
it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, random as 
chance-medley — a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus re- 
viewed it, tempted him no longer; but on the further side 
he perceived a quiet haven for his bark. He paused in 
the passage, and looked into the shop, where the candle 
still burned by the dead body. It was strangely silent. 
Thoughts of the dealer swarmed into his mind, as he 
stood gazing. And then the bell once more broke out 
into impatient clamour. 

He confronted the maid upon the threshold with some- 
thing like a smile. 

"You had better go for the police," said he: "I have 
killed your master." 



STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND 
MR. HYDE^ 

TO 

KATHARINE DE MATTOS^ 

It's ill to loose the bands that God decreed to bind; 
Still will we be the children of the heather and the wind. 
Far away from home, O it's still for you and me 
That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie. 

STORY OF THE DOOR 

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged 
countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, 
scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in senti- 
ment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. 
At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his 
taste, something eminently human beaconed from his 
eye; something indeed which never found its way into 
his talk; but which spoke not only in these silent sym- 
bols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly 
in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; 
drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for 
vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not 

^ Written at Bournemouth at the close of 1885, while Stevenson 
was struggling with ill-health, and published in January, 1886, in 
book form. The problem of the duality of the moral nature, 
which had already worked itself into story form in his Markheirriy 
here is given more complete expression. A dream gave him the 
plot. Mrs. Stevenson was awakened one night by cries of horror 
from Stevenson. He said angrily, "Why did you wake me? I 
was dreaming a fine bogey tale.'' She had aroused him at the first 
transformation scene of what afterward became Dr. Jekyll and Mr, 
Hyde. It was this story which first gave him reputation in America. 

2 A favourite cousin. 

379 



380 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had 
an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wonder- 
ing, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits in- 
volved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined 
to help rather than to reprove. ^*I incline to Cain's 
heresy,'^ he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother go 
to the devil in his own way.'' In this character, it was 
frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaint- 
ance and the last good influence in the lives of down- 
going men. And to such as these, so long as they came 
about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change 
in his demeanour. 

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he 
was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship 
seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good- 
nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his 
friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; 
and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those 
of his own blood or those whom he had known the 
longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, 
they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, 
the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his 
distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It 
was a nut to crack for many, what these two could 
see in each other, or what subject they could find in 
common. It was reported by those who encountered 
them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, 
looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious re- 
lief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two 
men put the greatest store by these excursions, counted 
them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside 
occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of 
business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted. 

It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led 
them down a by-street in a busy quarter of London. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 381 

The street was small and what is called quiet, but it 
drove a thriving trade on the week-days. The inhabi- 
tants were all doing well, it seemed, and all emulously 
hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of 
their gains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood 
along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like 
rows of smiling saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when 
it veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively 
empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its 
dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with 
its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses and 
general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught 
and pleased the eye of the passenger. 

Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going 
east, the line was broken by the entry of a court; and 
just at that point, a certain sinister block of building 
thrust forward its gable on the street. It was two 
storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a door on 
the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured 
wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks 
of prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which 
was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blis- 
tered and distained. Tramps slouched into the recess 
and struck matches on the panels; children kept shop 
upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on 
the mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one 
had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to 
repair their ravages. 

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of 
the by-street; but when they came abreast of the entry, 
the former lifted up his cane and pointed. 

"Did you ever remark that door?^^ he asked; and 
when his companion had replied in the affirmative, "It 
is connected in my mind/^ added he, "with a very odd 
story." 



382 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

" Indeed ? " said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of 
voice, *^and what was that?'^ 

"Well, it was this way/' returned Mr. Enfield: ''I 
was coming home from some place at the end of the world, 
about three o'clock of a black winter morning, and my 
way lay through a part of town where there was literally 
nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street, and 
all the folks asleep — street after street, all lighted up as 
if for a procession and all as empty as a church — till at 
last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and 
listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. 
All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was 
stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other 
a girl of maybe eight or ten w^ho was running as hard as 
she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran 
into one another naturally enough at the corner; and 
then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man 
trampled calmly over the child's body and left her 
screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, 
but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it was 
like some damned Juggernaut.^ I gave a view halloa, 
took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought 
him back to where there was already quite a group about 
the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no 
resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought 
out the sweat on me like running. The people who had 
turned out were the girl's own family; and pretty soon, 
the doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his ap- 
pearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, 
more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there 
you might have supposed would be an end to it. But 
there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a 



* When the car containing the idol of Juggernaut, a Hindu god, 
was drawn in procession, fanatic worshippers threw themselves be- 
fore it to be crushed. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 383 

loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So had the 
child^s family, which was only natural. But the doetor^s 
case was what struck me. He was the usual cut and 
dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a 
strong Edinburgh accent, and about as emotional as a 
bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every 
time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn 
sick and white with the desire to kill him. I knew what 
was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and 
killing being out of the question, we did the next best. 
We told the man we could and would make such a 
scandal out of this, as should make his name stink from 
one end of London to the other. If he had any friends 
or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. 
And all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot, we 
were keeping the women off him as best we could for 
they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such 
hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with 
a kind of black, sneering coolness — frightened too, I 
could see that — but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. 
^If you choose to make capital out of this accident,* 
said he, ^I am naturally helpless. No gentleman but 
wishes to avoid a scene,* says he. *Name your figure.* 
Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the 
child*s family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; 
but there was something about the lot of us that meant 
mischief, and at last he struck. The next thing was to 
get the money; and where do you think he carried us 
but to that place with the door? — whipped out a key, 
went in, and presently came back with the matter of ten 
pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on Coutts's, 
drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I 
can't mention, though it *s one of the points of my story, 
but it was a name at least very well known and often 
printed. The figure was stiff; but the signature was 



384 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

good for more than that, if it was only genuine. I took 
the hberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the 
whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does 
not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the 
morning and come out of it with another man's cheque 
for close upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite 
easy and sneering. ^ Set your mind at rest,^ says he, ' I 
will stay with you till the banks open and cash the cheque 
myself.^ So we all set off, the doctor, and the child's 
father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of 
the night in my chambers; and next day, when we had 
breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I gave in the 
check myself, and said I had every reason to believe it 
was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was 
genuine.'^ 

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson. 

"I see you feel as I do,'' said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it 's 
a bad story. For my man was a fellow that nobody 
could have to do with, a really damnable man; and the 
person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the pro- 
prieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one 
of your fellows who do what they call good. Black 
mail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose 
for some of the capers of his youth. Black Mail House 
is what I call that place with the door, in consequence. 
Though even that, you know, is far from explaining all," 
he added, and with the words fell into a vein of musing. 

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking 
rather suddenly: "And you don't know if the drawer 
of the cheque lives there?" 

"A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield. 
"But I happen to have noticed his address; he lives in 
some square or other." 

"And you never asked about the — place with the 
door?" said Mr. Utterson. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 385 

''No, sir: I had a delicacy/^ was the reply. "I feel 
very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too 
much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a 
question, and it 's like starting a stone. You sit quietly 
on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting 
others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you 
would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his 
own back garden and the family have to change their 
name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it 
looks like Queer Street, the less I ask." 

"A very good rule, too," said the lawyer. 

" But I have studied the place for myself," continued 
Mr. Enfield. " It seems scarcely a house. There is no 
other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one but, 
once in a great while, the gentleman of my adventure. 
There are three windows looking on the court on the 
first floor; none below; the windows are always shut 
but they ^re clean. And then there is a chimney which 
is generally smoking; so somebody must live there. 
And yet it ^s not so sure; for the buildings are so packed 
together about that court, that it 's hard to say where 
one ends and another begins." 

The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and 
then " Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, " that 's a good rule 
of yours." 

'*Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield. 

" But for all that," continued the lawyer, " there ^s 
one point I want to ask: I want to ask the name of that 
man who walked over the child." 

''Well,". said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it 
would do. It was a man of the name of Hyde." 

" H'm," said Mr. Utterson. " What sort of a man is 
he to see?" 

"He is not easy to describe. There is something 
wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, 



386 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

something downright detestable. I never saw a man I 
so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be 
deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feehng of de- 
formity, although I couldn't specify the point. He ^s an 
extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name 
nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand 
of it; I can't describe him. And it 's not want of mem- 
ory; for I declare I can see him this moment." 

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and 
obviously under a weight of consideration. "You are 
sure he used a key?" he inquired at last. 

"My dear sir . . ." began Enfield, surprised out of 
himself. 

"Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem 
strange. The fact is, if I do not ask you the name of 
the other party, it is because I know it already. You see, 
Richard, your tale has gone home. If you have been 
inexact in any point, you had better correct it." 

"I think you might have warned me," returned the 
other with a touch of sullenness. "But I have been 
pedantically exact, as you call it. The fellow had a 
key; and what 's more, he has it still. I saw him use it, 
not a week ago." 

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; 
and the young man presently resumed. "Here is an- 
other lesson to say nothing," said he. "I am ashamed 
of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to refer 
to this again." 

"With all my heart," said the lawyer. "I shake 
hands on that, Richard." 

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 

That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor 
house in sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 387 

relish. It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal 
was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry 
divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of the neigh- 
bouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he 
would go soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night, 
however, as soon as the cloth was taken away, he took 
up a candle and went into his business room. There he 
opened his safe, took from the most private part of it a 
document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will, 
and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents. 
The will was holograph, for Mr. Utterson, though he 
took charge of it now that it was made, had refused to 
lend the least assistance in the making of it; it provided 
not only that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, 
M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., etc., all his possessions 
were to pass into the hands of his "friend and bene- 
factor Edward Hyde," but that in case of Dr. Jekyll's 
"disappearance or unexplained absence for any period 
exceeding three calendar months,'* the said Edward 
Hyde should step into the said Henry JekylFs shoes 
without further delay and free from any burthen or 
obligation, beyond the payment of a few small sums to 
the members of the doctor's household. This document 
had long been the lawyer's eyesore. It offended him 
both as a lawyer and as a lover of the sane and customary 
sides of life, to whom the fanciful was the immodest. 
And hitherto it was his ignorance of Mr. Hyde that had 
swelled his indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was 
his knowledge. It was already bad enough when the 
name was but a name of which he could learn no more. 
It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with de- 
testable attributes; and out of the shifting, insubstantial 
mists that had so long bafHed his eye, there leaped up 
the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend. 

"I thought it was madness," he said, as he replaced 



388 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the obnoxious paper in the safe, " and now I begin to 
fear it is disgrace/' 

With that he blew out his candle, put on a greatcoat, 
and set forth in the direction of Cavendish Square, that 
citadel of medicine, where his friend, the great Dr. 
Lanyon, had his house and received his crowding pa- 
tients. "If anyone knows, it will be Lanyon,'^ he had 
thought. 

The solemn butler knew and welcomed him; he was 
subjected to no stage of delay; but ushered direct from 
the door to the dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone 
over his wine. This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red- 
faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, 
and a boisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. 
Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and welcomed 
him with both hands. The geniality, as was the way of 
the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it re- 
posed on genuine feeling. For these two were old 
friends, old mates both at school and college, both thor- 
ough respecters of themselves and of each other, and, 
what does not always follow, men who thoroughly en- 
joyed each other's company. 

After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the 
subject which so disagreeably preoccupied his mind. 

"I suppose, Lanyon," said he, "you and I must be 
the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?" 

"I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. 
Lanyon. "But I suppose we are. And what of that? 
I see little of him now." 

"Indeed?" said Utterson. "I thought you had a 
bond of common interest." 

" We had," was the reply. " But it is more than ten 
years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. 
He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of 
course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake's 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 389 

sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of 
the man. Such unscientific balderdash,^^ added the 
doctor, flushing suddenly purple, " would have estranged 
Damon and Pythias, ^^ 

This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to 
Mr. Utterson. ^^They have only differed on some point 
of science,^^ he thought; and being a man of no scientific 
passions (except in the matter of conveyancing), he even 
added: "It is nothing worse than that!'^ He gave his 
friend a few seconds to recover his composure, and then 
approached the question he had come to put. "Did 
you ever come across a protege of his — one Hyde?^^ he 
asked. 

"Hyde?'^ repeated Lanyon. "No. Never heard of 
him. Since my time.** 

That was the amount of information that the lawyer 
carried back with him to the great, dark bed on which 
he tossed to and fro, until the small hours of the morn- 
ing began to grow large. It was a night of little ease to 
his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and besieged 
by questions. 

Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was 
so conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and 
still he was digging at the problem. Hitherto it had 
touched him on the intellectual side alone; but now his 
imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and 
as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night and 
the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by before his 
mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware 
of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of 
the figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child run- 
ning from the doctor's; and then these met, and that 
human Juggernaut trod the child down and passed on 
regardless of her screams. Or else he would see a room 
in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming 



390 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that 
room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked 
apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo! there would stand by 
his side a figure to whom power was given, and even at 
that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The 
figure in these two phases haunted the lawyer all night; 
and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to see it 
glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move 
the more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to dizzi- 
ness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and 
at every street corner crush a child and leave her scream- 
ing. And still the figure had no face by which he might 
know it; even in his dreams, it had no face, or one that 
baflBed him and melted before his eyes; and thus it was 
that there sprang up and grew apace in the lawyer's 
mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity 
to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde. If he could 
but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would 
lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the 
habit of mysterious things when well examined. He 
might see a reason for his friend's strange preference or 
bondage (call it which you please) and even for the 
startling claudip of the will. At least it would be a face 
worth seeing: the face of a man who was without bowels 
of mercy: a face which had but to show itself to raise up, 
in the mind of the unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of 
enduring hatred. 

From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt 
the door in the by-street of shops. In the morning be- 
fore office hours, at noon when business was plenty, and 
time scarce, at night under the face of the fogged city 
moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or con- 
course, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post. 

"If he be Mr. Hyde/' he had thought,"! shall be Mr. 
Seek." 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 391 

And at last his patience was rewarded. It was a fine 
dry night; frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ball- 
room floor; the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing 
a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten o'clock, 
when the shops were closed, the by-street was very soli- 
tary and, in spite of the low growl of London from all 
round, very silent. Small sounds carried far; domestic 
sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either 
side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approach of 
any passenger preceded him by a long time. Mr. Utter- 
son had been some minutes at his post, when he was aware 
of an odd, light footstep drawing near. In the course of 
his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the 
quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, 
while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out dis- 
tinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. Yet his 
attention had never before been so sharply and decisively 
arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision 
of success that he withdrew into the entry of the court. 

The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out sud- 
denly louder as they turned the end of the street. The 
lawyer, looking forth from the entry, could soon see what 
manner of man he had to deal with. He was small and 
very plainly dressed, and the look of him, even at that 
distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher's 
inclination. But he made straight for the door, crossing 
the roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a 
key from his pocket like one approaching home. 

Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the 
shoulder as he passed. ^'Mr. Hyde, I think?" 

Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the 
breath. But his fear was only momentary; and though 
he did not look the lawyer in the face, he answered 
coolly enough : " That is my name. What do you want ? " 

^^I see you are going in," returned the lawyer. ^*I 



392 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

am an old friend of Dr. JekylFs — Mr. Utterson of Gaunt 
Street — you must have heard my name; and meeting 
you so conveniently, I thought you might admit me.^^ 

"You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home/^ re- 
plied Mr. Hyde, blowing in the key. And then sud- 
denly, but still without looking up, " How did you know 
me?'^ he asked. 

" On your side," said Mr. Utterson, " will you do me 
a favour?" 

"With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall it 
be?" 

"Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer. 

Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon 
some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of 
defiance; and the pair stared at each other pretty fixedly 
for a few seconds. "Now, I shall know you again," 
said Mr. Utterson. " It may be useful." 

"Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "it is as well v/e have 
met; and a propos, you should have my address." And 
he gave a number of a street in Soho. 

"Good God!" thought Mr. Utterson, "can he, too, 
have been thinking of the will." But he kept his feel- 
ings to himself and only grunted in acknowledgment of 
the address. 

"And now," said the other, "how did you know me?" 

" By description," was the reply. 

" Whose description ? " 

"We have common friends," said Mr. Utterson. 

"Common friends?" echoed Mr. Hyde, a little 
hoarsely. "Who are they?" 

" Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer. 

" He never told you," cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of 
anger. " I did not think you would have lied." 

"Come," said Mr. Utterson, "that is not fitting 
language." 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 393 

The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the 
next moment, with extraordinary quickness, he had un- 
locked the door and disappeared into the house. 

The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left 
him, the picture of disquietude. Then he began slowly 
to mount the street, pausing every step or two and put- 
ting his hand to his brow like a man in mental perplexity. 
The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was 
one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale 
and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without 
any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, 
he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of mur- 
derous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke 
with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; 
all these were points against him, but not all of these 
together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, 
loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded 
him. "There must be something else,^' said the per- 
plexed gentleman. "There is something more, if I 
could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems 
hardly human! Something troglodytic,^ shall we say? 
or can it be the old story of Dr. Fell ? ^ or is it the mere 
radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and 
transfigures, its clay continent? The last, I think; for, 
O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if I ever read Satan's 
signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend/' 

Round the corner from the by-street, there was a 
square of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most 
part decayed from their high estate and let in flats and 

^ Characteristic of the cave-dwellers, or other primitive men. 
^ Dr. Fell was a seventeenth century divine whose reputation has 
been preserved in Tom Brown's lines : 

" I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, 
The reason why I cannot tell; 
But this alone I know full well, 
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell." 



394 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

chambers to all sorts and conditions of men: map-en- 
gravers, architects, shady lawyers and the agents of 
obscure enterprises. One house, however, second from 
the corner, was still occupied entire; and at the door of 
this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort, 
though it was now plunged in darkness except for the 
fanlight, Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A well- 
dressed, elderly servant opened the door. 

"Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole ?^^ asked the lawyer. 

"I will see, Mr. Utterson,^' said Poole, admitting the 
visitor, as he spoke, into a large, low-roofed, comfortable 
hall, paved with flags, warmed (after the fashion of a 
country house) by a bright, open fire, and furnished 
with costly cabinets of oak. " Will you wait here by the 
fire, sir? or shall I give you a light in the dining-room?^' 

" Here, thank you," said the lawyer, and he drew near 
and leaned on the tall fender. This hall, in which he 
was now left alone, was a pet fancy of his friend the 
doctor's; and Utterson himself was wont to speak of it 
as the pleasantest room in London. But to-night there 
was a shudder in his blood; the face of Hyde sat heavy 
on his memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a 
nausea and distaste of life; and in the gloom of his 
spirits, he seemed to read a menace in the flickering of 
the firelight on the polished cabinets and the uneasy 
starting of the shadow on the roof. He was ashamed of 
his relief, when Poole presently returned to announce 
that Dr. Jekyll was gone out. 

"I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting-room 
door, Poole," he said. "Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll 
is from home?" 

" Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant. 
"Mr. Hyde has a key." 

" Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in 
that young man, Poole," resumed the other musingly. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 395 

"Yes, sir, he do indeed/^ said Poole. "We have all 
orders to obey him." 

"I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?'' asked Utter- 
son. 

"O, dear no, sir. He never dines here," replied the 
butler. "Indeed we see very little of him on this side 
of the house; he mostly comes and goes by the labora- 
tory." 

"Well, good-night, Poole." 

"Good-night, Mr. Utterson." 

And the lawyer set out homeward with a very heavy 
heart. "Poor Harry Jekyll," he thought, "my mind 
misgives me he is in deep waters! He was wild when 
he was young; a long while ago to be sure; but in the 
law of God, there is no statute of limitations. Ay, it 
must be that; the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of 
some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, pede 
claudo,^ years after memory has forgotten and self-love 
condoned the fault." And the lawyer, scared by the 
thought, brooded awhile on his own past, groping in all 
the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the- 
Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there. His 
past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls 
of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled 
to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and 
raised up again into a sober and fearful gratitude by the 
many that he had come so near to doing, yet avoided. 
And then by a return on his former subject, he conceived 
a spark of hope. " This Master Hyde, if he were stud- 
ied," thought he, "must have secrets of his own; black 
secrets, by the look of him; secrets compared to which 
poor JekylFs worst would be like sunshine. Things 
cannot continue as they are. It turns me cold to think 
of this creature stealing like a thief to Harry's bedside; 
^ With limping foot. 



396 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

poor Harry, what a wakening! And the danger of it; 
for if this Hyde suspects the existence of the will, he 
may grow impatient to inherit. Ay, I must put my 
shoulder to the wheel— if Jekyll will but let me," he 
added, "if Jekyll will only let me/' For once more he 
saw before his mind's eye, as clear as a transparency, 
the strange clauses of the will. 

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE 

A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor 
gave one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old 
cronies, all intelligent, reputable men and all judges of 
good wine; and Mr. Utterson so contrived that he re- 
mained behind after the others had departed. This was 
no new arrangement, but a thing that had befallen 
many scores of times. Where Utterson was liked, he 
was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, 
when the light-hearted and the loose-tongued had al- 
ready their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit awhile 
in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, 
sobering their minds in the man's rich silence after 
the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule. Dr. 
Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the op- 
posite side of the fire— a large, well-made, smooth-faced 
man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but 
every mark of capacity and kindness— you could see by 
his looks that he cherished for Mr. Utterson a sincere 
and warm affection. 

" I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll," began 
the latter. "You know that will of yours?" 

A close observer might have gathered that the topic 
was distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. " My 
poor Utterson," said he, "you are unfortunate in such 
a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 397 

by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, 
Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies. O, I 
know he ^s a good fellow — you needn^t frown — an ex- 
cellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; 
but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, 
blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any 
man than Lanyon.^^ 

^'You know I never approved of it,^' pursued Utter- 
son, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic. 

^'My will? Yes, certainly, I know that," said the 
doctor, a trifle sharply. " You have told me so." 

^*Well, I tell you so again," continued the lawyer. 
^' I have been learning something of young Hyde." 

The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to 
the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. 
"I do not care to hear more," said he. "This is a 
matter I thought we had agreed to drop." 

" What I heard was abominable," said Utterson. 

"It can make no change. You do not understand 
my position," returned the doctor, with a certain inco- 
herency of manner. "I am painfully situated. Utter- 
son; my position is a very strange — a very strange one. 
It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by 
talking." 

"Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me: I am a man 
to be trusted. Make a clean breast of this in confidence; 
and I make no doubt I can get you out of it." 

"My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is very 
good of you, this is downright good of you, and I cannot 
find words to thank you in. I believe you fully; I 
would trust you before any man alive, ay, before myself, 
if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn't what you 
fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your 
good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing: the moment 
I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde. I give you my 



398 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

hand upon that; and I thank you again and again; and 
I will just add one little word, Utterson, that I ^m sure 
you ^11 take in good part: this is a private matter, and I 
beg of you to let it sleep/^ 

Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire. 

"I have no doubt you are perfectly right/^ he said at 
last, getting to his feet. 

" Well, but since we have touched upon this business, 
and for the last time I hope,^^ continued the doctor, 
" there is one point I should like you to understand. I 
have really a very great interest in poor Hyde. I know 
you have seen him; he told me so; and I fear he was 
rude. But I do sincerely take a great, a very great in- 
terest in that young man; and if I am taken away, Ut- 
terson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear w^ith 
him and get his rights for him. I think you would, if 
you knew all; and it would be a weight oflF my mind if 
you would promise. ^^ 

" I can't pretend that I shall ever like him,'' said the 
lawyer. 

"I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand 
upon the other's arm; "I only ask for justice; I only 
ask you to help him for my sake, when I am no longer 
here." 

Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh. "Well," said 
he, '*I promise." 

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 

Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18 — , 
London was startled by a crime of singular ferocity and 
rendered all the more notable by the high position of the 
victim. The details were few and startling. A maid 
servant living alone in a house not far from the river, 
had gone upstairs to bed about eleven, Although a fog 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 399 

rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of 
the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's 
window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. 
It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down 
upon her box, which stood immediately under the 
window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she 
used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated 
that experience), never had she felt more at peace with 
all men or thought more kindly of the world. And as 
she so sat she became aware of an aged and beautiful 
gentleman with white hair, drawing near along the lane; 
and advancing to meet him, another and very small 
gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention. 
When they had come within speech (which was just 
under the maid's eyes) the older man bowed and accosted 
the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It 
did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great 
importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes ap- 
peared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the 
moon shone on his face as he spoke, and the girl was 
pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an inno- 
cent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with 
something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. 
Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was 
surprised to recognize in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who 
had once visited her master and for whom she had con- 
ceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with 
which he was trifling; but he answered never a word, 
and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. 
And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of 
anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, 
and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman. 
The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one 
very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. 
Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the 



400 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

earth. And next moment, with ape-Hke fury, he was 
trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm 
of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered 
and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror 
of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted. 

It was two o'clock when she came to herself and 
called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; 
but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, in- 
credibly mangled. The stick with which the deed had 
been done, although it was of some rare and very tough 
and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the 
stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half 
had rolled in the neighbouring gutter — the other, with- 
out doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A 
purse and a gold watch were found upon the victim: 
but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped 
envelope which he had been probably carrying to the post, 
and which bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson. 

This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, 
before he was out of bed; and he had no sooner seen it, 
and been told the circumstances, than he shot out a 
solemn lip. "I shall say nothing till I have seen the 
body," said he; "this may be very serious. Have the 
kindness to wait while I dress." And with the same 
grave countenance he hurried through his breakfast and 
drove to the police station, whither the body had been 
carried. As soon as he came into the cell, he nodded. 

" Yes," said he, " I recognise him. I am sorry to say 
that this is Sir Danvers Carew." 

"Good God, sir," exclaimed the officer, "is it pos- 
sible?" And the next moment his eye lighted up with 
professional ambition. " This will make a deal of noise," 
he said. "And perhaps you can help us to the man." 
And he briefly narrated what the maid had seen, and 
showed the broken stick. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 401 

Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of 
Hyde; but when the stick was laid before him, he could 
doubt no longer; broken and battered as it was, he recog- 
nised it for one that he had himself presented many 
years before to Henry Jekyll. 

"Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?'* he 
inquired. 

"Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking, 
is what the maid calls him," said the officer. 

Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his head, 
" If you will come with me in my cab," he said, " I think 
I can take you to his house." 

It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the 
first fog of the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall 
lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually 
charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that 
as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson 
beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twi- 
light; for here it would be dark like the back-end of 
evening; and there would be a glow of rich, lurid brown, 
like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, 
for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a 
haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the 
swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter of Soho seen 
under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, 
and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had 
never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to 
combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in 
the lawyer's eyes, like a district of some city in a night- 
mare. The thoughts of his mind, besides, were of the 
gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the companion 
of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that 
terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at 
times assail the most honest. 

As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the 



402 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

fog lifted a little and showed him a dingy street, a gin 
palace, a low French eating house, a shop for the retail 
of penny numbers and twopenny salads, many ragged 
children huddled in the doorways, and many women of 
many different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to 
have a morning glass; and the next moment the fog 
settled down again upon that part, as brown as umber, 
and cut him off from his blackguardly surroundings. 
This was the home of Henry Jekyll's favourite; of a 
man who was heir to quarter of a million sterling. 

An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened 
the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; 
but her manners were excellent. Yes, she said, this was 
Mr. Hyde's, but he was not at home; he had been in 
that night very late, but had gone away again in less 
than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; his 
habits were very irregular, and he was often absent; for 
instance, it was nearly two months since she had seen 
him till yesterday. 

"Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms,'' said the 
lawyer; and when the woman began to declare it was 
impossible, "I had better tell you who this person is," he 
added. "This is Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard." 

A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman's face. 
" Ah ! " said she, " he is in trouble ! What has he done ? " 

Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances. 
" He don't seem a very popular character," observed the 
latter. "And now, my good woman, just let me and 
this gentleman have a look about us." 

In the whole extent of the house, which but for the 
old woman remained otherwise empty, Mr. Hyde had 
only used a couple of rooms; but these were furnished 
with luxury and good taste. A closet was filled with 
wine; the plate was of silver, the napery elegant; a 
good picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 403 

supposed) from Henry Jekyll, who was much of a con- 
noisseur; and the carpets were of many pHes and agree- 
able in colour. At this moment, however, the rooms 
bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly 
ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets 
inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the 
hearth there lay a pile of gray ashes, as though many 
papers had been burned. From these embers the in- 
spector disinterred the butt end of a green cheque book, 
which had resisted the action of the fire; the other half 
of the stick was found behind the door; and as this 
clinched his suspicions, the officer declared himself de- 
lighted. A visit to the bank, where several thousand 
pounds were found to be lying to the murderer's credit, 
completed his gratification. 

^* You may depend upon it, sir,^' he told Mr. Utterson: 
" I have him in my hand. He must have lost his head, 
or he never would have left the stick or, above all, 
burned the cheque book. Why, money's life to the man. 
We have nothing to do but wait for him at the bank, 
and get out the handbills.'' 

This last, however, was not so easy of accomplish- 
ment; for Mr. Hyde had numbered few familiars — even 
the master of the servant maid had only seen him twice; 
his family could nowhere be traced; he had never been 
photographed; and the few who could describe him 
differed widely, as common observers will. Only on 
one point, were they agreed; and that was the haunting 
sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive 
impressed his beholders. 

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 

It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found 
his way to Dr. Jekyll's door, where he was at once ad- 



404 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

mltted by Poole, and carried down by the kitchen oflBces 
and across a yard which had once been a garden, to the 
building which was indifferently known as the laboratory 
or the dissecting rooms. The doctor had bought the 
house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon; and his 
own tastes being rather chemical than anatomical, had 
changed the destination of the block at the bottom of 
the garden. It was the first time that the lawyer had 
been received in that part of his friend's quarters; and 
he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with curiosity, 
and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness 
as he crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager stu- 
dents and now lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden 
with chemical apparatus, the floor strewn with crates 
and littered with packing straw, and the light falling 
dimly through the foggy cupola. At the further end, a 
flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with red baize; 
and through this, Mr. Utterson was at last received into 
the doctor's cabinet. It was a large room, fitted round 
with glass presses, furnished, among other things, with 
a cheval-glass and a business table, and looking out upon 
the court by three dusty windows barred with iron. A 
fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the 
chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog began to 
lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr. 
Jekyll, looking deadly sick. He did not rise to meet his 
visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome 
in a changed voice. 

''And now,'' said Mr. Utterson, as soon as Poole had 
left them, "you have heard the news?" 

The doctor shuddered. "They were crying it in the 
square," he said. "I heard them in my dining-room." 

"One word," said the lawyer. "Carew was my cli- 
ent, but so are you, and I want to know what I am doing. 
You have not been mad enough to hide this fellow?" 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 405 

*'Utterson, I swear to God/' cried the doctor, "I 
swear to God I will never set eyes on him again. I bind 
my honour to you that I am done with him in this world. 
It is all at an end. And indeed he does not want my 
help; you do not know him as I do; he is safe, he is 
quite safe; mark my words, he will never more be heard 
of.'' 

The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like his 
friend's feverish manner. "You seem pretty sure of 
him," said he; "and for your sake, I hope you may 
be right. If it came to a trial, your name might 
appear." 

"I am quite sure of him," replied Jekyll; "I have 
grounds for certainty that I cannot share with anyone. 
But there is one thing on which you may advise me. I 
have — I have received a letter; and I am at a loss 
whether I should show it to the police. I should like 
to leave it in your hands, Utterson; you would judge 
wisely, I am sure; I have so great a trust in you." 

"You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detec- 
tion?" asked the lawyer. 

" No," said the other. " I cannot say that I care what 
becomes of Hyde; I am quite done with him. I was 
thinking of my own character, which this hateful busi- 
ness has rather exposed." 

Utterson ruminated awhile; he was surprised at his 
friend's selfishness, and yet relieved by it. " Well," said 
he, at last, "let me see the letter." 

The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and 
signed "Edward Hyde": and it signified, briefly enough, 
that the writer's benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had 
long so unworthily repaid for a thousand generosities, 
need labour under no alarm for his safety, as he had 
means of escape on which he placed a sure dependence. 
The lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a better 



406 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

colour on the intimacy than he had looked for; and he 
blamed himself for some of his past suspicions. 

"Have you the envelope?^' he asked. 

" I burned it,'' replied Jekyll, " before I thought what 
I was about. But it bore no postmark. The note was 
handed in.^^ 

"Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?^' asked Utterson. 

" I wish you to judge for me entirely/^ was the reply. 
" I have lost confidence in myself .^^ • 

"Well, I shall consider/^ returned the lawyer. "And 
now one word more: it was Hyde who dictated the 
terms in your will about that disappearance?^* 

The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; 
he shut his mouth tight and nodded. 

"I knew it/' said Utterson. "He meant to murder 
you. You have had a fine escape." 

"I have had what is far more to the purpose," re- 
turned the doctor solemnly: "I have had a lesson — O 
God, Utterson, what a lesson I have had!" And he 
covered his face for a moment with his hands. 

On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word 
or two with Poole. " By the bye," said he, " there was 
a letter handed in to-day: what was the messenger like ?" 
But Poole was positive nothing had come except by 
post; "and only circulars by that," he added. 

This news sent off the visitor with his fears renewed. 
Plainly the letter had come by the laboratory door; pos- 
sibly, indeed, it had been written in the cabinet; and if 
that were so, it must be differently judged, and handled 
with the more caution. The newsboys, as he went, 
were crying themselves hoarse along the footways: 
"Special edition. Shocking murder of an M. P." 
That was the funeral oration of one friend and client; 
and he could not help a certain apprehension lest the 
good name of another should be sucked down in the 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 407 

eddy of the scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision 
that he had to make; and self-reliant as he was by habit, 
he began to cherish a longing for advice. It was not to 
be had directly; but perhaps, he thought, it might be 
fished for. 

Presently after, he sat on one side of his own hearth, 
with Mr. Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and mid- 
way between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, 
a bottle of a particular old wine that had long dwelt un- 
sunned in the foundations of his house. The fog still 
slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the 
lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and through the 
muflBe and smother of these fallen clouds, the proces- 
sion of the town's life was still rolling in through the 
great arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind. But 
the room was gay with firelight. In the bottle the acids 
were long ago resolved; the imperial dye had softened 
with time, as the colour grows richer in stained windows; 
and the glow of hot autumn afternoons on hillside vine- 
yards, was ready to be set free and to disperse the fogs 
of London. Insensibly the lawyer melted. There was 
no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than Mr. 
Guest; and he was not always sure that he kept as 
many as he meant. Guest had often been on business 
to the doctor's; he knew Poole; he could scarce have 
failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the house; 
he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, 
that he should see a letter which put that mystery to 
rights ? and above all since Guest, being a great student 
and critic of handwriting, would consider the step natural 
and obliging? The clerk, besides, was a man of coun- 
sel; he would scarce read so strange a document with- 
out dropping a remark; and by that remark Mr. Utter- 
son might shape his future course. 

" This is a sad business about Sir Danvers," he said. 



408 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

"Yes, sir, indeed. It has elicited a great deal of public 
feeling/^ returned Guest. "The man, of course, was 
mad/' 

"I should like to hear your views on that,'' replied 
Utterson. "I have a document here in his handwriting; 
it is between ourselves, for I scarce know what to do 
about it; it is an ugly business at the best. But there it 
is; quite in your way: a murderer's autograph." 

Guest's eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and 
studied it with passion. "No, sir," he said: "not mad; 
but it is an odd hand." 

" And by all accounts a very odd writer," added the 
lawyer. 

Just then the servant entered with a note. 

"Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir?" inquired the clerk. 
"I thought I knew the writing. Anything private, Mr. 
Utterson?" 

" Only an invitation to dinner. Why ? Do you want 
to see it?" 

"One moment. I thank you, sir;" and the clerk laid 
the two sheets of paper alongside and sedulously com- 
pared their contents. "Thank you, sir," he said at 
last, returning both; "it 's a very interesting autograph." 

There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson strug- 
gled with himself. "Why did you compare them. 
Guest?" he inquired suddenly. 

" Well, sir," returned the clerk, " there 's a rather 
singular resemblance; the two hands are in many points 
identical: only differently sloped." 

"Rather quaint," said Utterson. 

" It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned Guest. 

"I wouldn't speak of this note, you know," said the 
master. 

"No, sir," said the clerk. "I understand." 

But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that night than 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 409 

he locked the note into his safe, where it reposed from 
that time forward. "What!'' he thought. "Henry 
Jekyll forge for a murderer!'' And his blood ran cold 
in his veins. 



REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 

Time ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in 
reward, for the death of Sir Danvers was resented as a 
public injury; but Mr. Hyde had disappeared out of the 
ken of the police as though he had never existed. Much 
of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable : 
tales came out of the man's cruelty, at once so callous 
and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates, of 
the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; 
but of his present whereabouts not a whisper. From 
the time he had left the house in Soho on the morning 
of the murder, he was simply blotted out; and grad- 
ually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to recover 
from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow more at quiet 
with himself. The death of Sir Danvers was, to his 
way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappear- 
ance of Mr. Hyde, Now that that evil influence had 
been withdrawn, a new life began for Dr. Jekyll. He 
came out of his seclusion, renewed relations with his 
friends, became once more their familiar guest and en- 
tertainer; and whilst he had always been known for 
charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion. 
He was busy, he was much in the open air, he did good; 
his face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an in- 
ward consciousness of service; and for more than two 
months, the doctor was at peace. 

On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doc- 
tor's with a small party; Lanyon had been there; and 
the face of the host had looked from one to the other as 



410 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

in the old days when the trio were inseparable friends. 
On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door was shut 
against the lawyer. "The doctor was confined to the 
house,^' Poole said, "and saw no one.'' On the 15th, 
he tried again, and was again refused; and having now 
been used for the last two months to see his friend almost 
daily, he found this return of solitude to weigh upon his 
spirits. The fifth night he had in Guest to dine with 
him; and the sixth he betook himself to Dr. Lanyon's. 

There at least he was not denied admittance; but 
when he came in, he was shocked at the change which 
had taken place in the doctor's appearance. He had his 
death-warrant written legibly upon his face. The rosy 
man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was 
visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much 
these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the 
lawyer's notice, as a look in the eye and quality of man- 
ner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of 
the mind. It was unlikely that the doctor should fear 
death; and yet that was what Utterson was tempted to 
suspect. "Yes," he thought; "he is a doctor, he must 
know his own state and that his days are counted; and 
the knowledge is more than he can bear." And yet 
when Utterson remarked on his ill-looks, it was with an 
air of great firmness that Lanyon declared himself a 
doomed man. 

"I have had a shock,'^ he said, "and I shall never 
recover. It is a question of weeks. Well, life has been 
pleasant; I liked it; yes, sir, I used to like it. I some- 
times think if we knew all, we should be more glad to 
get away." 

" Jekyll is ill, too," observed Utterson. "Have you 
seen him?" 

But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a trem- 
bling hand. "I wish to see or hear no more of Dr, 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 411 

Jekyll/' he said in a loud, unsteady voice. ^' I am quite 
done with that person; and I beg that you will spare 
me any allusion to one whom I regard as dead.'* 

^'Tut-tut/' said Mr. Utterson; and then after a con- 
siderable pause, "Can^t I do anything ?^^ he inquired. 
*'We are three very old friends, Lanyon; we shall not 
live to make others.^' 

"Nothing can be done/' returned Lanyon; "ask 
himself." 

" He will not see me,'' said the lawyer. 

"I am not surprised at that,'' was the reply. "Some 
day, Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come 
to learn the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell you. 
And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of 
other things, for God's sake, stay and do so; but if 
you cannot keep clear of this accursed topic, then, in 
God's name, go, for I cannot bear it." 

As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote 
to Jekyll, complaining of his exclusion from the house, 
and asking the cause of this unhappy break with Lanyon; 
and the next day brought him a long answer, often very 
pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious 
in drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. "I 
do not blame our old friend," Jekyll wrote, " but I share 
his view that we must never meet. I mean from hence- 
forth to lead a life of extreme seclusion; you must not 
be surprised, nor must you doubt my friendship, if my 
door is often shut even to you. You must suffer me to 
go my own dark way. I have brought on myself a 
punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am 
the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also. I 
could not think that this earth contained a place for 
sufferings and terrors so unmanning; and you can do 
but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this destiny, and that 
is to respect my silence," Utterson was amazed; the 



412 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, the doctor 
had returned to his old tasks and amities; a week ago, 
the prospect had smiled with every promise of a cheerful 
and an honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, 
and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of his life were 
wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed 
to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner and words, 
there must lie for it some deeper ground. 

A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and 
in something less than a fortnight he was dead. The 
night after the funeral, at which he had been sadly 
affected, Utterson locked the door of his business room, 
and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, 
drew out and set before him an envelope addressed by 
the hand and sealed with the seal of his dead friend. 
^'Private: for the hands of G. J. Utterson alone, and 
in case of his predecease to he destroyed unread,'^ so it 
was emphatically superscribed; and the lawyer dreaded 
to behold the contents. "I have buried one friend to- 
day,'^ he thought: "what if this should cost me an- 
other?^' And then he condemned the fear as a dis- 
loyalty, and broke the seal. Within there was another 
enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked upon the cover 
as "not to be opened till the death or disappearance of 
Dr. Henry Jekyll.^' Utterson could not trust his eyes. 
Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad will 
which he had long ago restored to its author, here again 
were the idea of a disappearance and the name of Henry 
Jekyll bracketted. But in the will, that idea had sprung 
from the sinister suggestion of the man Hyde; it was 
set there with a purpose all too plain and horrible. 
Written by the hand of Lanyon, what should it mean? 
A great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the 
prohibition and dive at once to the bottom of these 
mysteries; but professional honour and faith to his dead 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 413 

friend were stringent obligations; and the packet slept 
in the inmost corner of his private safe. 

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer 
it; and it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Utter- 
son desired the society of his surviving friend with the 
same eagerness. He thought of him kindly; but his 
thoughts were disquieted and fearful. He went to call 
indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to be denied ad- 
mittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak 
with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the 
air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be ad- 
mitted into that house of voluntary bondage, and to sit 
and speak with its inscrutable recluse. Poole had, 
indeed, no very pleasant news to communicate. The 
doctor, it appeared, now more than ever confined him- 
self to the cabinet over the laboratory, where he would 
sometimes even sleep; he was out of spirits, he had 
grown very silent, he did not read; it seemed as if he 
had something on his mind. Utterson became so used 
to the unvarying character of these reports, that he fell 
off little by little in the frequency of his visits. 

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW 

It chanced on Sunday, when Mr. Utterson was on his 
usual walk with Mr. Enfield, that their way lay once 
again through the by-street; and that when they came 
in front of the door, both stopped to gaze on it. 

" Well,^^ said Enfield, " that story's at an end at least. 
We shall never see more of Mr. Hyde.'^ 

"I hope not,^^ said Utterson. "Did I ever tell you 
that I once saw him, and shared your feeling of repul- 
sion?^^ 

"It was impossible to do the one without the other,'' 
returned Enfield. "And by the way, what an ass you 



414 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

must have thought me, not to know that this was a back 
way to Dr. JekylFs! It was partly your own fault that 
I found it out, even when I did." 

" So you found it out, did you ?" said Utterson. " But 
if that be so, we may step into the court and take a look 
at the windows. To tell you the truth, I am uneasy 
about poor Jekyll; and even outside, I feel as if the 
presence of a friend might do him good." 

The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of 
premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, 
was still bright with sunset. The middle one of the 
three windows was half way open; and sitting close be- 
side it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, 
like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll. 

"What! Jekyll!" he cried. "I trust you are better." 

" I am very low, Utterson," replied the doctor, drearily, 
"very low. It will not last long, thank God." 

" You stay too much indoors," said the lawyer. " You 
should be out, whipping up the circulation like Mr. En- 
field and me. . (This is my cousin — Mr. Enfield — Dr. 
Jekyll.) Come now; get your hat and take a quick turn 
with us." 

"You are very good," sighed the other. "I should 
like to very much; but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; 
I dare not. But indeed, Utterson, I am very glad to see 
you; this is really a great pleasure; I would ask you and 
Mr. Enfield up, but the place is really not fit." 

"Why then," said the lawyer, good-naturedly, "the 
best thing we can do is to stay down here and speak 
with you from where we are." 

"That is just what I was about to venture to pro- 
pose," returned the doctor with a smile. But the words 
were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of 
his face and succeeded by an expression of such abject 
terror and despair, as froze the very blood of the two 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 415 

gentlemen below. They saw it but for a glimpse, for 
the window was instantly thrust down; but that glimpse 
had been sufficient, and they turned and left the court 
without a word. In silence, too, they traversed the by- 
street; and it was not until they had come into a neigh- 
bouring thoroughfare, where even upon a Sunday there 
were still some stirrings of life, that Mr. Utterson at last 
turned and looked at his companion. They were both 
pale; and there was an answering horror in their eyes. 

" God forgive us, God forgive us,^^ said Mr. Utterson. 

But Mr. Enfield only nodded his head very seriously, 
and walked on once more in silence. 

THE LAST NIGHT 

Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one evening 
after dinner, when he was surprised to receive a visit 
from Poole. 

"Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?^' he cried; 
and then taking a second look at him, " What ails you ?" 
he added; "is the doctor ill?'' 

"Mr. Utterson,*' said the man, "there is something 
wrong.'' 

"Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you,'^ 
said the lawyer. "Now, take your time, and tell me 
plainly what you want." 

"You know the doctor's ways, sir," replied Poole, 
" and how he shuts himself up. Well, he 's shut up 
again in the cabinet; and I don't like it, sir — I wish I 
may die if I like it. Mr. Utterson, sir, I 'm afraid." 

"Now, my good man," said the lawyer, "be explicit. 
What are you afraid of?" 

" I 've been afraid for about a week," returned Poole, 
doggedly disregarding the question, "and I -can bear it 
no more." 



416 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

The man's appearance amply bore out his words; his 
manner was altered for the worse; and except for the 
moment when he had first announced his terror, he had 
not once looked the lawyer in the face. Even now, he 
sat with the glass of wine untasted on his knee, and his 
eyes directed to a corner of the floor. ^* I can bear it no 
more,'' he repeated. 

" Come," said the lawyer, " I see you have some good 
reason, Poole; I see there is something seriously amiss. 
Try to tell me what it is." 

" I think there 's been foul play," said Poole, hoarsely. 

"Foul play!" cried the lawyer, a good deal frightened 
and rather inclined to be irritated in consequence. 
" What foul play ? What does the man mean ? " 

"I daren't say, sir," was the answer; "but will you 
come along with me and see for yourself?" 

Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and get his hat 
and great coat; but he observed with wonder the great- 
ness of the relief that appeared upon the butler's face, 
and perhaps with no less, that the wine was still un- 
tasted when he set it down to follow. 

It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with 
a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had 
tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphanous 
and lawny texture. The wind made talking difficult, 
and flecked the blood into the face. It seemed to have 
swept the streets unusually bare of passengers, besides; 
for Mr. Utterson thought he had never seen that part of 
London so deserted. He could have wished it otherwise; 
never in his life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish 
to see and touch his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he 
might, there was borne in upon his mind a crushing an- 
ticipation of calamity. The square, when they got there, 
was all full of wind and dust, and the thin trees in the 
garden were lashing themselves along the railing. Poole, 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 417 

who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead, now 
pulled up in the middle of the pavement, and in spite of 
the biting weather, took oflf his hat and mopped his 
brow with a red pocket-handkerchief. But for all the 
hurry of his coming, these were not the dews of exertion 
that he wiped away, but the moisture of some strangling 
anguish; for his face was white and his voice, when he 
spoke, harsh and broken. 

"Well, sir,'' he said, "here we are, and God grant 
there be nothing wrong." 

"Amen, Poole,'' said the lawyer. 

Thereupon the servant knocked in a very guarded 
manner; the door was opened on the chain; and a voice 
asked from within, "Is that you, Poole?" 

"It 's all right," said Poole. "Open the door." 

The hall, vv^hen they entered it, was brightly lighted 
up; the fire was built high; and about the hearth the 
whole of the servants, men and women, stood huddled 
together like a flock of sheep. At the sight of Mr. 
Utterson, the housemaid broke into hysterical whimper- 
ing; and the cook, crying out "Bless God! it's Mr. 
Utterson," ran forward as if to take him in her arms. 

"What, what? Are you all here?" said the lawj^er 
peevishly. "Very irregular, very unseemly; your mas- 
ter would be far from pleased." 

"They 're all afraid," said Poole. 

Blank silence followed, no one protesting; only the 
maid lifted up her voice and now wept loudly. 

"Hold your tongue!" Poole said to her, with a feroc- 
ity of accent that testified to his own jangled nerves; 
and indeed, when the girl had so suddenly raised the note 
of her lamentation, they had all started and turned 
towards the inner door with faces of dreadful expecta- 
tion. "And now," continued the butler, addressing the 
knife-boy, " reach me a candle, and we '11 get this through 



418 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

hands at once/' And then he begged Mr. Utterson to 
follow him, and led the way to the back garden. 

" Now, sir,'' said he, " you come as gently as you can. 
I want you to hear, and I don't want you to be heard. 
And see here, sir, if by any chance he was to ask you in, 
don't go." 

Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for termina- 
tion, gave a jerk that nearly threw him from his bal- 
ance; but he recollected his courage and followed the 
butler into the laboratory building and through the sur- 
gical theatre, with its lumber of crates and bottles, to 
the foot of the stair. Here Poole motioned him to stand 
on one side and listen; while he himself, setting down 
the candle and making a great and obvious call on his 
resolution, mounted the steps and knocked with a some- 
what uncertain hand on the red baize of the cabinet 
door. 

"Mr. Utterson, sii-, asking to see you," he called; 
and even as he did so, once more violently signed to the 
lawyer to give ear. 

A voice answered from within: "Tell him I cannot see 
anyone," it said complainingly. 

"Thank you, sir," said Poole, with a note of some- 
thing like triumph in his voice; and taking up his can- 
dle, he led Mr. Utterson back across the yard and into 
the great kitchen, where the fire was out and the beetles 
were leaping on the floor. 

" Sir," he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the eyes, " was 
that my master's voice ? " 

"It seems much changed," replied the lawyer, very 
pale, but giving look for look. 

"Changed? Well, yes, I think so," said the butler. 
"Have I been twenty years in this man's house, to be 
deceived about his voice? No, sir; master's made 
away with; he was made away with, eight days ago. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 419 

when we heard him cry out upon the name of God; 
and who ^s in ' there instead of him, and why it stays 
there, is a thing that cries to Heaven, Mr. UttersonP' 

^^This is a very strange tale, Poole; this is rather a 
wild tale, my man,^^ said Mr. Utterson, biting his fin- 
ger. "Suppose it were as you suppose, supposing Dr. 
Jekyll to have been — well, murdered, what could induce 
the murderer to stay? That won't hold water; it 
doesn't commend itself to reason.'^ 

"Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy, 
but I '11 do it yet," said Poole. "All this last week (you 
must know) him, or it, or whatever it is that lives in that 
cabinet, has been crying night and day for some sort of 
medicine and cannot get it to his mind. It was some- 
times his way — the master's, that is — to write his orders 
on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair. We 've 
had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, 
and a closed door, and the very meals left there to be 
smuggled in when nobody was looking. Well, sir, 
every day, ay, and twice and thrice in the same day, 
there have been orders and complaints, and I have been 
sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in town. Every 
time I brought the stuff back, there would be another 
paper telling me to return it, because it was not pure, 
and another order to a different firm. This drug is 
wanted bitter bad, sir, whatever for." 

" Have you any of these papers ?" asked Mr. Utterson. 

Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled 
note, which the lawyer, bending nearer to the candle, 
carefully examined. Its contents ran thus: "Dr. Jekyll 
presents his compliments to Messrs. Maw. He assures 
them that their last sample is impure and quite useless 
for his present purpose. In the year 18 — , Dr. J. pur- 
chased a somewhat large quantity from Messrs. M. He 
now begs them to search with the most sedulous care. 



420 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

and should any of the same quality be left, to forward 
it to him at once. Expense is no consideration. The 
importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated.^' 
So far the letter had run composedly enough, but here 
with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion 
had broken loose. "For God's sake/' he had added, 
"find me some of the old." 

"This is a strange note," said Mr. Utterson; and then 
sharply, "How do you come to have it open?" 

"The man at Maw's was main angry, sir, and he 
threw it back to me like so much dirt," returned Poole. 

"This is unquestionably the doctor's hand, do you 
know?" resumed the lawyer. 

"I thought it looked like it," said the servant rather 
sulkily; and then, with another voice, "But what mat- 
ters hand of write?" he said. "I 've seen him!" 

" Seen him ? " repeated Mr. Utterson. " Well ? " 

"That 's it!" said Poole. "It was this way. I came 
suddenly into the theatre from the garden. It seems he 
had slipped out to look for this drug or whatever it is; 
for the cabinet door was open; and there he was at the 
far end of the room digging among the crates. He 
looked up when I came in, gave a kind of cry, and 
whipped upstairs into the cabinet. It was but for one 
minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head 
like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a 
mask upon his face? If it was my master, why did he 
cry out like a rat, and run from me ? I have served him 
long enough. And then . . ." The man paused and 
passed his hand over his face. 

"These are all very strange circumstances," said Mr. 
Utterson, "but I think I begin to see daylight. Your 
master, Poole, is plainly seized with one of those mala- 
dies that both torture and deform the sufferer; hence, 
for aught I know, the alteration of his voice; hence the 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 421 

mask and the avoidance of his friends; hence his eager- 
ness to find this drug, by means of which the poor soul 
retains some hope of ultimate recovery — God grant that 
he be not deceived! There is my explanation; it is sad 
enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is 
plain and natural, hangs well together, and delivers us 
from all exorbitant alarms/^ 

"Sir,^^ said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled 
pallor, "that thing was not my master, and there ^s the 
truth. My master" — here he looked round him and 
began to whisper — "is a tall, fine build of a man, and 
this was more of a dwarf." Utterson attempted to pro- 
test. "O, sir," cried Poole, "do you think I do not 
know my master after twenty years? Do you think I 
do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet 
door, where I saw him every morning of my life? No, 
sir, that thing in the mask was never Dr. Jekyll — God 
knows what it was, but it was never Dr. Jekyll; and it 
is the belief of my heart that there was murder done." 

"Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that, it will 
become my duty to make certain. Much as I desire to 
spare your master's feelings, much as I am puzzled by 
this note which seems to prove him to be still alive, I 
shall consider it my duty to break in that door." 

"Ah, Mr. Utterson, that's talking!" cried the butler. 

"And now comes the second question," resumed 
Utterson: "Who is going to do it?" 

" Why, you and me," was the undaunted reply. 

"That's very well said," returned the lawyer; "and 
whatever comes of it, I shall make it my business to see 
you are no loser." 

"There is an axe in the theatre," continued Poole; 
" and you might take the kitchen poker for yourself." 

The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument 
into his hand, and balanced it. " Do you know, Poole," 



422 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

he said, looking up, ^' that you and I are about to place 
ourselves in a position of some peril ?'^ 

"You may say so, sir, indeed,^^ returned the butler. 

"It is well, then, that we should be frank," said the 
other. "We both think more than we have said; let us 
make a clean breast. This masked figure that you saw, 
did you recognise it?'^ 

"Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so 
doubled up, that I could hardly swear to that," was the 
answer. "But if you mean, was it Mr. Hyde? — why, 
yes, I think it was! You see, it was much of the same 
bigness; and it had the same quick, light way with it; 
and then who else could have got in by the laboratory 
door ? You have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the 
murder he had still the key with him ? But that 's not 
all. I don't know, Mr. Utterson, if ever you met this 
Mr. Hyde?" 

"Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him." 

"Then you must know as well as the rest of us that 
there was something queer about that gentleman — 
something that gave a man a turn — I don't know rightly 
how to say it, sir, beyond this: that you felt it in your 
marrow kind of cold and thin." 

"I own I felt something of what you describe," said 
Mr. Utterson. 

"Quite so, sir," returned Poole. "Well, when that 
masked thing like a monkey jumped from among the 
chemicals and whipped into the cabinet, it went down 
my spine like ice. O, I know it 's not evidence, Mr. 
Utterson; I'm book-learned enough for that; but a 
man has his feelings, and I give you my bible-word it 
was Mr. Hyde!" 

"Ay, ay," said the lawyer. "My fears incline to the 
same point. Evil, I fear, founded — evil was sure to 
come — of that connection. Ay, truly, I believe you; I 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 423 

believe poor Harry is killed; and I believe his murderer 
(for what purpose, God alone can tell) is still lurking in 
his victim^s room. Well, let our name be vengeance. 
Call Bradshaw.^^ 

The footman came at the summons, very white and 
nervous. 

"Pull yourself together, Bradshaw," said the lawyer. 
"This suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you; but 
it is now our intention to make an end of it. Poole, 
here, and I are going to force our way into the cabinet. 
If all is well, my shoulders are broad enough to bear the 
blame. Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, 
or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you and 
the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good 
sticks and take your post at the laboratory door. We 
give you ten minutes to get to your stations." 

As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch. 
"And now, Poole, let us get to ours," he said; and 
taking the poker under his arm, led the way into the 
yard. The scud had banked over the moon, and it was 
now quite dark. The wind, which only broke in puffs 
and draughts into that deep well of building, tossed the 
light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until 
they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat 
down silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all 
around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was only broken 
by the sounds of a footfall moving to and fro along the 
cabinet floor. 

"So it will walk all day, sir," whispered Poole; "ay, 
and the better part of the night. Only when a new 
sample comes from the chemist, there 's a bit of a break. 
Ah, it 's an ill-conscience that ^s such an enemy to rest! 
Ah, sir, there ^s blood foully shed in every step of it! But 
hark again, a little closer — put your heart in your ears, 
Mr. Utterson, and tell me, is that the doctor's foot?" 



424 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, 
for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from 
the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson 
sighed. "Is there never anything else?^' he asked. 

Poole nodded. "Once/' he said. "Once I heard it 
weeping !'' 

"Weeping? how that?'' said the lawyer, conscious of 
a sudden chill of horror. 

"Weeping like a woman or a lost soul," said the 
butler. " I came away with that upon my heart, that I 
could have wept too." 

But now the ten minutes drew to an end. Poole dis- 
interred the axe from under a stack of packing straw; 
the candle was set upon the nearest table to light them 
to the attack; and they drew near with bated breath to 
where that patient foot was still going up and down, up 
and down, in the quiet of the night. 

"Jekyll," cried Utterson, with a loud voice, "I de- 
mand to see you." He paused a moment, but there 
came no reply. "I give you fair warning, our sus- 
picions are aroused, and I must and shall see you," he 
resumed; "if not by fair means, then by foul — if not of 
your consent, then by brute force!" 

"Utterson," said the voice, "for God's sake, have 
mercy!" 

"Ah, that's not Jekyll's voice — it's Hyde's!" cried 
Utterson. "Down with the door, Poole!" 

Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the blow 
shook the building, and the red baize door leaped against 
the lock and hinges. A dismal screech, as of mere 
animal terror, rang from the cabinet. Up went the axe 
again, and again the panels crashed and the frame 
bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was 
tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; 
and it was not until the fifth, that the lock burst in 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 425 

sunder and the wreck of the door fell inwards on the 
carpet. 

The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the 
stillness that had succeeded, stood back a little and 
peered in. There lay the cabinet before their eyes in 
the quiet lamplight, a good fire glowing and chattering 
on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin strain, a drawer 
or two open, papers neatly set forth on the business table, 
and nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea: the 
quietest room, you would have said, and, but for the 
glazed presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace 
that night in London. 

Right in the midst there lay the body of a man sorely 
contorted and still twitching. They drew near on tip- 
toe, turned it on its back and beheld the face of Edward 
Hyde. He was dressed in clothes far too large for him, 
clothes of the doctor's bigness; the cords of his face still 
moved with a semblance of life, but life was quite gone: 
and by the crushed phial in the hand and the strong 
smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew 
that he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer. 

"We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether 
to save or punish. Hyde is gone to his account; and it 
only remains for us to find the body of your master." 

The far greater proportion of the building was occupied 
by the theatre, which filled almost the whole ground 
story and was lighted from above, and by the cabinet, 
which formed an upper story at one end and looked 
upon the court. A corridor joined the theatre to the 
door on the by-street; and with this the cabinet com- 
municated separately by a second flight of stairs. There 
were besides a few dark closets and a spacious cellar. 
All these they now thoroughly examined. Each closet 
needed but a glance, for all were empty, and all, by the 
dust that fell from their doors, had stood long unopened. 



426 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

The cellar, indeed, was filled with crazy lumber, mostly 
dating from the times of the surgeon who was JekylFs 
predecessor; but even as they opened the door they were 
advertised of the uselessness of further search, by the 
fall of a perfect mat of cobweb which had for years sealed 
up the entrance. Nowhere was there any trace of Henry 
Jekyll, dead or alive. 

Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor. "He 
must be buried here,^^ he said, hearkening to the sound. 

" Or he may have fled,^' said Utterson, and he turned 
to examine the door in the by-street. It was locked; 
and lying near by on the flags, they found the key, al- 
ready stained with rust. 

" This does not look like use,^^ observed the lawyer. 

"UseP^ echoed Poole. "Do you not see, sir, it is 
broken ? much as if a man had stamped on it.^^ 

"Ay,^^ continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, 
are rusty.^^ The two men looked at each other with a 
scare. "This is beyond me, Poole," said the lawyer. 
"Let us go back to the cabinet.'* 

They mounted the stair in silence, and still with an 
occasional awestruck glance at the dead body, proceeded 
more thoroughly to examine the contents of the cabinet. 
At one table, there were traces of chemical work, various 
measured heaps of some white salt being laid on glass 
saucers, as though for an experiment in which the un- 
happy man had been prevented. 

"That is the same drug that I was always bringing 
him,'* said Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with 
a startling noise boiled over. 

This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair 
was drawn cosily up, and the tea things stood ready to 
the sitter's elbow, the very sugar in the cup. There 
were several books on a shelf; one lay beside the tea 
things open, and Utterson was amazed to find it a copy 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 427 

of a pious work, for which Jekyll had several times 
expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand, 
with startling blasphemies. 

Next, in the course of their review of the chamber, the 
searchers came to the cheval glass, into whose depths 
they looked with an involuntary horror. But it was so 
turned as to show them nothing but the rosy glow play- 
ing on the roof, the fire sparkling in a hundred repetitions 
along the glazed front of the presses, and their own pale 
and fearful countenances stooping to look in. 

^'This glass have seen some strange things, sir,^' 
whispered Poole. 

"And surely none stranger than itself,'* echoed the 
lawyer in the same tones. "For what did JekylP* — he 
caught himself up at the word with a start, and then 
conquering the weakness — "what could Jekyll want 
with it?" he said. 

"You may say thatP* said Poole. 

Next they turned to the business table. On the desk, 
among the neat array of papers, a large envelope was 
uppermost, and bore, in the doctor's hand, the name of 
Mr. Utterson. The lawyer unsealed it, and several en- 
closures fell to the floor. The first was a will, drawn in 
the same eccentric terms as the one which he had re- 
turned six months before, to serve as a testament in case 
of death, and as a deed of gift in case of disappearance; 
but in place of the name of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, 
with indescribable amazement, read the name of Gabriel 
John Utterson. He looked at Poole, and then back at 
the paper, and last of all at the dead malefactor stretched 
upon the carpet. 

"My head goes round,'* he said. "He has been all 
these days in possession; he had no cause to like me; 
he must have raged to see himself displaced; and he 
has not destroyed this document.'* 



428 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in 
the doctor's hand and dated at the top. "O Poole P^ 
the lawyer cried, "he was alive and here this day. He 
cannot have been disposed of in so short a space; he 
must be still alive, he must have fled! And then, why 
fled ? and how ? and in that case, can we venture to declare 
this suicide ? O, we must be careful. I foresee that we 
may yet involve your master in some dire catastrophe." 

"Why don't you read it, sir?" asked Poole. 

" Because I fear," replied the lawyer solemnly. " God 
grant I have no cause for it!" And with that he brought 
the paper to his eyes and read as follows: 

"My Dear Utterson, — When this shall fall into your hands, I 
shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the 
penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of 
my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be early. 
Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he 
was to place in your hands; and if you care to hear more, turn to 
the confession of 

"Your unworthy and unhappy friend, 

"Henry Jekyll." 

"There was a third enclosure?" asked Utterson. 

"Here, sir," said Poole, and gave into his hands a 
considerable packet sealed in several places. 

The lawyer put it in his pocket. " I would say noth- 
ing of this paper. If your master has fled or is dead, we 
may at least save his credit. It is now ten; I must go 
home and read these documents in quiet; but I shall 
be back before midnight, when we shall send for the 
police." 

They went out, locking the door of the theatre behind 
them; and Utterson, once more leaving the servants 
gathered about the fire in the hall, trudged back to his 
office to read the two narratives in which this mystery 
was now to be explained. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 429 

DR. LANYON's narrative 

On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I re- 
ceived by the evening delivery a registered envelope, 
addressed in the hand of my colleague and old school- 
companion, Henry Jekyll. I was a good deal surprised 
by this; for we were by no means in the habit of corre- 
spondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, 
the night before; and I could imagine nothing in our 
intercourse that should justify formality of registration. 
The contents increased my wonder; for this is how the 
letter ran: 

"10th December, 18- 
"Dear Lanyon, — You are one of my oldest friends; and although 
we may have differed at times on scientific questions, I cannot remem- 
ber, at least on my side, any break in our affection. There was never 
a day when, if you had said to me, ' Jekyll, my life, my honour, my 
reason, depend upon you,' I would not have sacrificed my left hand to 
help you. Lanyon, my life, my honour, my reason, are all at your 
mercy; if you fail me to-night I am lost. You might suppose, after 
this preface, that I am going to ask you for something dishonourable 
to grant. Judge for yourself. 

"I want you to postpone all other engagements for to-night — ay, 
even if you were summoned to the bedside of an emperor; to take a 
cab, unless your carriage should be actually at the door; and with this 
letter in your hand for consultation, to drive straight to my house. 
Poole, my butler, has his orders; you will find him waiting your arri- 
val with a locksmith. The door of my cabinet is then to be forced: 
and you are to go in alone; to open the glazed press (letter E) on the 
left hand, breaking the lock if it be shut; and to draw out, with all its 
contents as they stand, the fourth drawer from the top or (which is the 
same thing) the third from the bottom. In my extreme distress of 
mind, I have a morbid fear of misdirecting you; but even if I am in 
error, you may know the right drawer by its contents: some powders, 
a phial and a paper book. This drawer I beg of you to carry back 
with you to Cavendish Square exactly as it stands. 

"That is the first part of the service: now for the second. You 
should be back, if you set out at once on the receipt of this, long be- 
fore midnight; but I will leave you that amount of margin, not only in 



430 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the fear of one of those obstacles that can neither be prevented nor 
foreseen, but because an hour when your servants are in bed is to be 
preferred for what will then remain to do. At midnight, then, I have 
to ask you to be alone in your consulting room, to admit with your 
own hand into the house a man who will present himself in my name, 
and to place in his hands the drawer that you will have brought with 
you from my cabinet. Then you will have played your part and 
earned my gratitude completely. Five minutes afterwards, if you 
insist upon an explanation, you will have understood that these 
arrangements are of capital importance; and that by the neglect of one 
of them, fantastic as they must appear, you might have charged your 
conscience with my death or the shipwreck of my reason. 

" Confident as I am that you will not trifle with this appeal, my heart 
sinks and my hand trembles at the bare thought of such a possibility. 
Think of me at this hour, in a strange place, labouring under a black- 
ness of distress that no fancy can exaggerate, and yet well aware that, 
if you will but punctually serve me, my troubles will roll away like a 
story that is told. Serve me, my dear Lanyon, and save 

"Your friend, 

'^H. J. 

" P. S. — I had already sealed this up when a fresh terror struck up- 
on my soul. It is possible that the post-office may fail me, and this 
letter not come into your hands until to-morrow morning. In that 
case, dear Lanyon, do my errand when it shall be most convenient 
for you in the course of the day; and once more expect my messenger 
at midnight. It may then already be too late; and if that night passes 
without event, you will know that you have seen the last of Henry 
JekyW:' 

Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my col- 
league was insane; but till that was proved beyond the 
possibility of doubt, I felt bound to do as he requested. 
The less I understood of this farrago, the less I was in 
a position to judge of its importance; and an appeal so 
worded could not be set aside without a grave respon- 
sibility. I rose accordingly from table, got into a han- 
som, and drove straight to JekylFs house. The butler 
was awaiting my arrival; he had received by the same 
post as mine a registered letter of instruction, and had 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 431 

sent at once for a locksmith and a carpenter. The 
tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; and we 
moved in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical theatre, 
from which (as you are doubtless aware) JekylFs private 
cabinet is most conveniently entered. The door was 
very strong, the lock excellent; the carpenter avowed he 
would have great trouble and have to do much damage, 
if force were to be used; and the locksmith was near 
despair. But this last was a handy fellow, and after 
two hours^ work, the door stood open. The press 
marked E was unlocked; and I took out the drawer, 
had it filled up with straw and tied in a sheet, and re- 
turned with it to Cavendish Square. 

Here I proceeded to examine its contents. The pow- 
ders were neatly enough made up, but not with the nicety 
of the dispensing chemist; so that it was plain they were 
of JekylFs private manufacture: and when I opened one 
of the wrappers I found what seemed to me a simple 
crystalline salt of a white colour. The phial, to which I 
next turned my attention, might have been about half 
full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent to 
the sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phos- 
phorus and some volatile ether. At the other ingredi- 
ents I could make no guess. The book was an ordinary 
version book and contained little but a series of dates. 
These covered a period of many years, but I observed that 
the entries ceased nearly a year ago and quite abruptly. 
Here and there a brief remark was appended to a 
date, usually no more than a single word: "double'* 
occurring perhaps six times in a total of several hun- 
dred entries; and once very early in the list and fol- 
lowed by several marks of exclamation, "total failure!!!" 
All this, though it whetted my curiosity, told me little 
that was definite. Here were a phial of some tincture, 
a paper of some salt, and the record of a series of experi- 



432 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

ments that had led (like too many of JekylFs investiga- 
tions) to no end of practical usefulness. How could the 
presence of these articles in my house affect either the 
honour, the sanity, or the life of my flighty colleague? 
If his messenger could go to one place, why could he not 
go to another? And even granting some impediment, 
why was this gentleman to be received by me in secret ? 
The more I reflected the more convinced I grew that I 
was dealing with a case of cerebral disease; and though 
I dismissed my servants to bed, I loaded an old revolver, 
that I might be found in some posture of self-defence. 

Twelve o'clock had scarce rung out over London, ere 
the knocker sounded very gently on the door. I went 
myself at the summons, and found a small man crouch- 
ing against the pillars of the portico. 

"Are you come from Dr. Jekyll?'' I asked. 

He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture; and when 
I had bidden him enter, he did not obey me without a 
searching backward glance into the darkness of the 
square. There was a policeman not far off, advancing 
with his bull's eye open; and at the sight, I thought my 
visitor started and made greater haste. 

These particulars struck me, I confess, disagreeably; 
and as I followed him into the bright light of the con- 
sulting room, I kept my hand ready on my weapon. 
Here, at last, I had a chance of clearly seeing him. I 
had never set eyes on him before, so much was certain. 
He was small, as I have said; I was struck besides with 
the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable 
combination of great muscular activity and great appar- 
ent debility of constitution, and — last but not least — 
with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his 
neighbourhood. This bore some resemblance to incip- 
ient rigour,^ and was accompanied by a marked sinking 

• ^ The first stages of a nervous chill. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 433 

of the pulse. At the time, I set it down to some idio- 
syncratic, personal distaste, and merely wondered at 
the acuteness of the symptoms; but I have since had 
reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the 
nature of man, and to turn on some nobler hinge than 
the principle of hatred. 

This person (who had thus, from the first moment of 
his entrance, struck in me what I can only describe as a 
disgustful curiosity) was dressed in a fashion that would 
have made an ordinary person laughable; his clothes, 
that is to say, although they were of rich and sober fabric, 
were enormously too large for him in every measure- 
ment — the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to 
keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below 
his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his 
shoulders. Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutre- 
ment was far from moving me to laughter. Rather, as 
there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the 
very essence of the creature that now faced me — some- 
thing seizing, surprising and revolting — this fresh dis- 
parity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so 
that to my interest in the man's nature and character, 
there was added a curiosity as to his origin, his life, his 
fortune and status in the world. 

These observations, though they have taken so great 
a space to be set down in, were yet the work of a few 
seconds. My visitor was, indeed, on fire with sombre 
excitement. 

"Have you got it?'' he cried. "Have you got it?" 
And so lively was his impatience that he even laid his 
hand upon my arm and sought to shake me. 

I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy 
pang along my blood. "Come, sir," said I. "You 
forget that I have not yet the pleasure of your acquaint- 
ance. Be seated, if you please." And I showed him 



434 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON • 

an example, and sat down myself in my customary seat 
and with as fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to 
a patient, as the lateness of the hour, the nature of my 
preoccupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, 
would suffer me to muster. 

^*I beg your pardon. Dr. Lanyon,^' he replied civilly 
enough. " What you say is very well founded; and my 
impatience has shown its heels to my politeness. I come 
here at the instance of your colleague. Dr. Henry Jekyll, 
on a piece of business of some moment, and I under- 
stood . . ." He paused and put his hand to his throat, 
and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he 
was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria — 
*'I understood, a drawer . . ." 

But here I took pity on my visitor^s suspense, and 
some perhaps on my own growing curiosity. 

"There it is, sir,'^ said I, pointing to the drawer, 
where it lay on the floor behind a table and still covered 
with the sheet. 

He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand 
upon his heart: I could hear his teeth grate with the con- 
vulsive action of his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to 
see that I grew alarmed both for his life and reason. 

" Compose yourself,^' said I. 

He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the 
decision of despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of 
the contents, he uttered one loud sob of such immense 
relief that I sat petrified. And the next moment, in a 
voice that was already fairly well under control, " Have 
you a graduated glass?'' he asked. 

I rose from my place with something of an effort and 
gave him what he asked. 

He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a 
few minims of the red tincture and added one of the 
powders. The mixture, which was at first of a reddish 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 435 

hue, began, in proportion as the crystals melted, to 
brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly, and to throw 
off small fumes of vapour. Suddenly and at the same 
moment, the ebullition ceased and the compound changed 
to a dark purple, which faded again more slowly to a 
watery green. My visitor, who had watched these 
metamorphoses with a keen eye, smiled, set down the 
glass upon the table, and then turned and looked upon 
me with an air of scrutiny. 

"And now," said he, "to settle what remains. Will 
you be wise? will you be guided? will you suffer me to 
take this glass in my hand and to go forth from your 
house without further parley ? or has the greed of curi- 
osity too much command of you? Think before you 
answer, for it shall be done as you decide. As you 
decide, you shall be left as you were before, and neither 
richer nor wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a 
man in mortal distress may be counted as a kind of 
riches of the soul. Or, if you shall so prefer to choose, 
a new province of knowledge and new avenues to fame 
and power shall be laid open to you, here, in this room, 
upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted by a 
prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan." 

" Sir," said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from 
truly possessing, "you speak enigmas, and you will 
perhaps not wonder that I hear you with no very strong 
impression of belief. But I have gone too far in the way 
of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end." 

"It is well," replied my visitor. "Lanyon, you re- 
member your vows: what follows is under the seal of 
our profession. And now, you who have so long been 
bound to the most narrow and material views, you who 
have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine, you 
who have derided your superiors — behold!" 

He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A 



436 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table 
and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with 
open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a 
change — he seemed to swell — his face became suddenly 
black and the features seemed to melt and alter — and 
the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped 
back against the wall, my arm raised to shield me from 
that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror. 

"O Godr' I screamed, and "O GodP' again and 
again; for there before my eyes — pale and shaken, and 
half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like 
a man restored from death — there stood Henry Jekyll! 

What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my 
mind to set on paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what 
I heard, and my soul sickened at it; and yet now when 
that sight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I be- 
lieve it, and I cannot answer. My life is shaken to its 
roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror sits by me 
at all hours of the day and night; I feel that my days 
are numbered, and that I must die; and yet I shall die 
incredulous. As for the moral turpitude that man un- 
veiled to me, even with tears of penitence, I cannot, even 
in memory, dwell on it without a start of horror. I will 
say but one thing, Utterson, and that (if you can bring 
your mind to credit it) will be more than enough. The 
creature who crept into my house that night was, on 
Jekyirs own confession, known by the name of Hyde 
and hunted for in every corner of the land as the mur- 
derer of Carew. tt t 

Hastie Lanyon. 

HENRY JEKYLL's FULL STATEMENT OF THE CASE 

I was born in the year 18 — to a large fortune, en- 
dowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by nature 
to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 437 

among my fellow-men, and thus, as might have been 
supposed, with every guarantee of an honourable and 
distinguished future. And indeed the worst of my 
faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such 
as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found 
it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry 
my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave 
countenance before the public. Hence it came about 
that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached 
years of reflection, and began to look round me and take 
stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood 
already committed to a profound duplicity of life. 
Many a man would have even blazoned such irregular- 
ities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I 
had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an 
almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the 
exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular 
degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, 
and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of 
men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill 
which divide and compound man's dual nature. In this 
case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on 
that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion 
and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. 
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense 
a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I 
was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and 
plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of 
day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of 
sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction 
of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the 
mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong 
light on this consciousness of the perennial war among 
my members. With every day, and from both sides of 
my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus 



438 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial dis- 
covery I have been doomed to such a dreadful ship- 
wreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say 
two, because the state of my own knowledge does not 
pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will 
outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess 
that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of 
multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I 
for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced in- 
fallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It 
was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I 
learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality 
of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in 
the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be 
said to be either, it was only because I was radically 
both; and from an early date, even before the course of 
my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most 
naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to 
dwell with pleasure, as a beloved day-dream, on the 
thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I 
told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life 
would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust 
might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and 
remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could 
walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing 
the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no 
longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of 
this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that 
these incongruous faggots were thus bound together — 
that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar 
twins should be continuously struggling, How, then, 
were they dissociated? 

I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a 
side light began to shine upon the subject from the lab- 
oratory table. I began to perceive more deeply than it 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 439 

has ever yet been stated, the trembhng immateriahty, 
the mist-hke transience, of this seemingly so sohd body 
in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to 
have the power to shake and to pluck back that fleshly 
vestment, even as a w^ind might toss the curtains of a 
pavilion. For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply 
into this scientific branch of my confession. First, be- 
cause T have been made to learn that the doom and 
burthen of our life is bound forever on man's shoulders, 
and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but re- 
turns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful 
pressure. Second, because, as my narrative will make, 
alas! too evident, my discoveries were incomplete. 
Enough, then, that I not only recognised my natural 
body for the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the 
powers that made up my spirit, but managed to com- 
pound a drug by which these powers should be de- 
throned from their supremacy, and a second form and 
countenance substituted, none the less natural to me 
because they were the expression, and bore the stamp, 
of lower elements in my soul. 

I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of 
practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any 
drug that so potently controlled and shook the very for- 
tress of identity, might by the least scruple of an over- 
dose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of 
exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle 
which I looked to it to change. But the temptation of 
a discovery so singular and profound, at last overcame 
the suggestions of alarm. I had long since prepared my 
tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale 
chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt which I 
knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient 
required; and late one accursed night, I compounded 
the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in 



440 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

the glass, and when the ebuUition had subsided, with a 
strong glow of courage, drank off the potion. 

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the 
bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that 
cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then 
these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to 
myself as if out of a great sickness. There was some- 
thing strange in my sensations, something indescribably 
new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt 
younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious 
of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual 
images running like a mill race in my fancy, a solution 
of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an inno- 
cent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first 
breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more 
wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, 
in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I 
stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these 
sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I 
had lost in stature. 

There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that 
which stands beside me as I write, was brought there 
later on and for the very purpose of these transforma- 
tions. The night, however, was far gone into the morn- 
ing — the morning, black at it was, was nearly ripe for 
the conception of the day — the inmates of my house 
were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and 
I determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, 
to venture in my new shape as far as to my bedroom. I 
crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked down 
upon me, I could have thought, with wonder, the first 
creature of that sort that their unsleeping vigilance had 
yet disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors, a 
stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I 
saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 441 

I must here, speak by theory alone, saying not that 
which I know, but that which I suppose to be most 
probable. The evil side of my nature, to which I had 
now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust 
and less developed than the good which I had just de- 
posed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, 
after all, nine-tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, 
it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. 
And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde 
was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry 
Jekyll. Even as good shone upon the countenance of 
the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face 
of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to 
be the lethal ^ side of man) had left on that body an im- 
print of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked 
upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no 
repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, 
was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my 
eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more 
express and single, than the imperfect and divided 
countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call 
mine. And in so far I was doubtless right. I have ob- 
served that when I wore the semblance of Edward 
Hyde, none could come near to me at first without a 
visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was 
because all human beings, as we meet them, are com- 
mingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone 
in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil. 

I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second 
and conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it 
yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond 
redemption and must flee before daylight from a house 
that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my 
cabinet; I once more prepared and drank the cup, once 
^ Deadly, causing death. 



442 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to my- 
self once more with the character, the stature and the 
face of Henry Jekyll. 

That night I had come to the fatal cross roads. Had 
I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit^ had I 
risked the experiment while under the empire of generous 
or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and 
from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth 
an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discrimi- 
nating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; but it 
shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition; 
and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within 
ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, 
kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the 
occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward 
Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as 
well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the 
other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous 
compound of whose reformation and improvement I 
had already learned to despair. The movement was 
thus wholly towards the worse. 

Even at that time, I had not yet conquered my aver- 
sion to the dryness of a life of study. I would still be 
merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were 
(to say the least) undignified, and I was not only well 
known and highly considered, but growing towards the 
elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily grow- 
ing more unwelcome. It was on this side that my new 
power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to 
drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted pro- 
fessor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward 
Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the 
time to be humourous; and I made my preparations 
with the most studious care. I took and furnished that 
house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; 
and engaged as housekeeper a creature whom I well 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 443 

knew to be silent and unscrupulous. On the other side, 
I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I 
described) was to have full liberty and power about my 
house in the square; and to parry mishaps, I even called 
and made myself a familiar object, in my second char- 
acter. I next drew up that will to which you so much 
objected; so that if anything befell me in the person of 
Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward Hyde with- 
out pecuniary loss. And thus fortified, as I supposed, 
on every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities 
of my position. 

Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, 
while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. 
I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was 
the first that could thus plod in the public eye with a 
load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a 
schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong 
into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable 
mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it — I did 
not even exist! Let me but escape into my laboratory 
door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow 
the draught that I had a Ways standing ready; and 
whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away 
like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his 
stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in 
his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, 
would be Henry Jekyll. 

The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my dis- 
guise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce 
use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, 
they soon began to turn towards the monstrous. When 
I would come back from these excursions, I was often 
plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. 
This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent 
forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently 



444 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

malign and villainous; his every act and thought cen- 
tered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity 
from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a 
man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast be- 
fore the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was 
apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the 
grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde 
alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke 
again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he 
would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo 
the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slum- 
bered. 

Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived 
(for even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I 
have no design of entering; I mean but to point out the 
warnings and the successive steps with which my chas- 
tisement approached. I met with one accident which, 
as it brought on no consequence, I shall no more than 
mention. An act of cruelty to a child aroused against 
me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised the other 
day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor and the 
child's family joined him; there were moments when I 
feared for my life; and at last, in order to pacify their 
too just resentment, Edward Hyde had to bring them to 
the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn in the name 
of Henry Jekyll. But this danger was easily eliminated 
from the future, by opening an account at another bank 
in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and when, by 
sloping my own hand backward, I had supplied my 
double with a signature, I thought I sat beyond the 
reach of fate. 

Some two months before the murder of Sir Danvers, 
I had been out for one of my adventures, had returned 
at a late hour, and woke the next day in bed with some- 
what odd sensations. It was in vain I looked about me; 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 445 

in vain I saw the decent furniture and tall proportions 
of my room in the square; in vain that I recognised that 
pattern of the bed curtains and the design of the mahogany 
frame; something still kept insisting that I was not 
where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to 
be, but in the little room in Soho where I was accustomed 
to sleep in the body of Edward Hyde. I smiled to my- 
self, and, in my psychological way began lazily to inquire 
into the elements of this illusion, occasionally, even as I 
did so, dropping back into a comfortable morning doze. 
I was still so engaged when, in one of my more wakeful 
moments, my eyes fell upon my hand. Now the hand 
of Henry Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was pro- 
fessional in shape and size: it was large, firm, white and 
comely. But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, 
in the yellow light of a mid-London morning, lying half 
shut on the bed clothes, was lean, corded, knuckly, of a 
dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of 
hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde. 

I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, 
sunk as I was in the mere stupidity of wonder, before 
terror woke up in my breast as sudden and startling as 
the crash of cymbals; and bounding from my bed, I 
rushed to the mirror. At the sight that met my eyes, 
my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin 
and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had 
awakened Edward Hyde. How was this to be ex- 
plained ? I asked myself; and then, with another bound 
of terror — how was it to be remedied? It was well on 
in the morning; the servants were up; all my drugs 
were in the cabinet — a long journey down two pair of 
stairs, through the back passage, across the open court 
and through the anatomical theatre, from where I was 
then standing horror-struck. It might indeed be pos- 
sible to cover my face; but of what use was that, when 



446 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature? 
And then with an overpowering sweetness of relief, it 
came back upon my mind that the servants were already 
used to the coming and going of my second self. I had 
soon dressed, as well as I was able, in clothes of my own 
size: had soon passed through the house, where Brad- 
shaw stared and drew back at seeing Mr. Hyde at such 
an hour and in such a strange array; and ten minutes 
later, Dr. Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was 
sitting down, with a darkened brow, to make a feint of 
breakfasting. 

Small indeed was my appetite. This inexplicable 
incident, this reversal of my previous experience, seemed, 
like the Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling out 
the letters of my judgment; and I began to reflect more 
seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities 
of my double existence. That part of me which I had 
the power of projecting, had lately been much exercised 
and nourished; it had seemed to me of late as though 
the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though 
(when I wore that form) I were conscious of a more 
generous tide of blood; and I began to spy a danger that, 
if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature 
might be permanently overthrown, the power of volun- 
tary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward 
Hyde become irrevocably mine. The power of the drug 
had not been always equally displayed. Once, very 
early in my career, it had totally failed me; since then I 
had been obliged on more than one occasion to double, 
and once, with infinite risk of death, to treble the amount; 
and these rare uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole 
shadow on my contentment. Now, however, and in the 
light of that morning's accident, I was led to remark 
that whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had been to 
throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 447 

decidedly transferred itself to the other side. All things 
therefore seemed to point to this: that I was slowly los- 
ing hold of my original and better self, and becoming 
slowly incorporated with my second and worse. 

Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My 
two natures had memory in common, but all other 
faculties were most unequally shared between them. 
Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensi- 
tive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected 
and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; 
but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered 
him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in 
which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had 
more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a 
son's indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was 
to die to those appetites which I had long secretly in- 
dulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in 
with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspira- 
tions, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised 
and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; 
but there was still another consideration in the scales; 
for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of 
abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that 
he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the 
terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; 
much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for 
any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with 
me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that 
I chose the better part and was found wanting in the 
strength to keep to it. 

Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, 
surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes; and 
bade a resolute farewell to the liberty, the comparative 
youth, the light step, leaping impulses and secret pleas- 
ures, that I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I 



448 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

made this choice perhaps with some unconscious reser- 
vation, for I neither gave up the house in Soho, nor 
destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay 
ready in my cabinet. For two months, however, I was 
true to my determination; for two months I led a life 
of such severity as I had never before attained to, and 
enjoyed the compensations of an approving conscience. 
But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my 
alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a 
thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and 
longings, as of Hyde, struggling after freedom; and at 
last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again com- 
pounded and swallowed the transforming draught. 

I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with 
himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred 
times affected by the dangers that he runs through his 
brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I 
had considered my position, made enough allowance for 
the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness 
to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward 
Hyde. Yet it was by these that I was punished. My 
devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was 
conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more un- 
bridled, a more furious propensity to ill. It must have 
been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest 
of impatience with which I listened to the civilities of 
my unhappy victim; I declare, at least before God, no 
man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime 
upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no 
more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child 
may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped 
myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the 
worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadi- 
ness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, 
however slightly, was to fall. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 449 

Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. 
With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, 
tasting delight from every blow, and it was not till 
weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, 
in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by 
a cold thrill of terror. A mist dispersed; I saw my life 
to be forfeit; and fled from the scene of these excesses, 
at once glorifying and trembling, my lust of evil gratified 
and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost 
peg. I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance 
doubly sure) destroyed my papers; thence I set out 
through the lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy 
of mind, gloating on my crime, light-headedly devising 
others in the future, and yet still hastening and still 
hearkening in my wake for the steps of the avenger. 
Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the 
draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man. 
The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, 
before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude 
and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his 
clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was 
rent from head to foot. I saw my life as a whole: I 
followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had 
walked with my father^s hand, and through the self- 
denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and 
again, with the same sense of unreality, at the damned 
horrors of the evening. I could have screamed aloud; 
I sought with tears and prayers to smother down the 
crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my 
memory swarmed against me; and still, between the 
petitions, the ugly face of my iniquity stared into my 
soul. As the acuteness of this remorse began to die 
away, it was succeeded by a sense of joy. The problem 
of my conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth im- 
possible; whether I would or not, I was now confined 



450 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

to the better part of my existence; and O, how I re- 
joiced to think it! with what wilHng humility, I em- 
braced anew the restrictions of natural life! with what 
sincere renunciation, I locked the door by which I had 
so often gone and come, and ground the key under my 
heel! 

The next day, came the news that the murder had 
been overlooked, that the guilt of Hyde was patent to 
the world, and that the victim was a man high in public 
estimation. It was not only a crime, it had been a tragic 
folly. I think I was glad to know it; I think I was 
glad to have my better impulses thus buttressed and 
guarded by the terrors of the scaffold. Jekyll was now 
my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an instant, and 
the hands of all men would be raised to take and slay 
him. 

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; 
and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful 
of some good. You know yourself how earnestly in the 
last months of last year, I laboured to relieve suffering; 
you know that much was done for others, and -that the 
days passed quietly, almost happily for myself. Nor 
can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and inno- 
cent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more 
completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of 
purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore oflF, 
the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently 
chained down, began to growl for license. Not that I 
dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea of that 
would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own per- 
son, that I was once more tempted to trifle with my 
conscience; and it was as an ordinary secret sinner, 
that I at last fell before the assaults of temptation. 

There comes an end to all things; the most capacious 
measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 451 

my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And 
yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a 
return to the old days before I had made my discovery. 
It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under foot where 
the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the 
Regent's Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet 
with spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the 
animal within me licking the chops of memory; the 
spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent 
penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I re- 
flected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, 
comparing myself with other men, comparing my active 
goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at 
the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm 
came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly 
shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and 
then as in its turn the faintness subsided, I began to be 
aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater 
boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds 
of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung form- 
lessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my 
knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward 
Hyde. A moment before I had been safe of all men's 
respect, wealthy, beloved — the cloth laying for me in the 
dining-room at home; and now I was the common 
quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known mur- 
derer, thrall to the gallows. 

My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I 
have more than once observed that, in my second char- 
acter, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my 
spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, 
where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose 
to the importance of the moment. My drugs were in 
one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach 
them? That was the problem that (crushing my tem- 



452 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

pies in my hands) I set myself to solve. The laboratory 
door I had closed. If I sought to enter by the house, 
my own servants would consign me to the gallows. I 
saw I must employ another hand, and thought of Lan- 
yon. How was he to be reached? how persuaded? 
Supposing that I escaped capture in the streets, how was 
I to make my way into his presence? and how should 
I, an unknown and displeasing visitor, prevail on the 
famous physician to rifle the study of his colleague. Dr. 
Jekylt? Then I ren.embered that of my original char- 
acter, one part remained to me: I could write my own 
hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the 
way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end. 
Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I could, 
and summoning a passing hansom, drove to an hotel in 
Portland Street, the name of which I chanced to remem- 
ber. At my appearance (which was indeed comical 
enough, however tragic a fate these garments covered) 
the driver could not conceal his mirth. I gnashed my 
teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury; and the 
smile withered from his face — happily for him — yet more 
happily for myself, for in another instant I had certainly 
dragged him from his perch. At the inn, as I entered, 
I looked about me with so black a countenance as made 
the attendants tremble; not a look did they exchange in 
my presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led me 
to a private room, and brought me wherewithal to write. 
Hyde in danger of his life was a creature new to me; 
shaken with inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of 
murder, lusting to inflict pain. Yet the creature was 
astute; mastered his fury with a great effort of the will; 
composed his two important letters, one to Lanyon and 
one to Poole; and that he might receive actual evidence 
of their being posted, sent them out with directions that 
they should be registered. 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 453 

Thenceforward, he sat all day over the fire in the 
private room, gnawing his nails; there he dined, sitting 
alone with his fears, the waiter visibly quailing before 
his eye; and thence, when the night was fully come, he 
set forth in the corner of a closed cab, and was driven 
to and fro about the streets of the city. He, I say — I 
cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; 
nothing lived in him but fear and hatred. And when 
at last, thinking the driver had begun to grow suspicious, 
he discharged the cab and ventured on foot, attired in 
his misfitting clothes, an object marked out for observa- 
tion, into the midst of the nocturnal passengers, these 
two base passions raged within him like a tempest. He 
walked fast, hunted by his fears, chattering to himself, 
skulking through the less frequented thoroughfares, 
counting the minutes that still divided him from mid- 
night. Once a woman spoke to him, offering, I think, 
a box of lights. He smote her in the face, and she fled. 

When I came to myself at Lanyon's, the horror of my 
old friend perhaps affected me somewhat; I do not 
know; it was at least but a drop in the sea to the ab- 
horrence with which I looked back upon these hours. 
A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear 
of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that 
racked me. I received Lanyon^s condemnation partly 
in a dream; it was partly in a dream that I came home 
to my own house and got into bed. I slept after the 
prostration of the day, with a stringent and profound 
slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me 
could avail to break. I awoke in the morning shaken, 
weakened, but refreshed. I still hated and feared the 
thought of the brute that slept within me, and I had not 
of course forgotten the appalling dangers of the day be- 
fore; but I was once more at home, in my own house 
and close to my drugs; and gratitude for my escape 



454 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

shone so strong in my soul that it almost rivalled the 
brightness of hope. 

I was stepping leisurely across the court after break- 
fast, drinking the chill of the air with pleasure, when I 
was seized again with those indescribable sensations that 
heralded the change; and I had but the time to gain the 
shelter of my cabinet, before I was once again raging 
and freezing with the passions of Hyde. It took on this 
occasion a double dose to recall me to myself; and alas! 
six hours after, as I sat looking sadly in the fire, the 
pangs returned, and the drug had to be readministered. 
In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great 
effort as of gymnastics, and only under the immediate 
stimulation of the drug, that I was able to w^ear the 
countenance of Jekyll. At all hours of the day and night, 
I would be taken with the premonitory shudder; above 
all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my chair, 
it was always as Hyde that I awakened. Under the 
strain of this continually impending doom and by the 
sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, 
even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I 
became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and 
emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, 
and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my 
other self. But when I slept, or when the virtue of the 
medicine wore off, I would leap almost without transition 
(for the pangs of transformation grew daily less marked) 
into the possession of a fancy brimming with images of 
terror, a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and a body 
that seemed not strong enough to contain the raging 
energies of life. The powers of Hyde seemed to have 
grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the 
hate that now divided them was equal on each side. 
With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now 
seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 455 

him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was 
co-heir with him to death: and beyond these Hnks of 
community, which in themselves made the most poignant 
part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy 
of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. 
This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit 
seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous 
dust gesticulated and sinned; that w^hat was dead, and 
had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this 
again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer 
than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, 
where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; 
and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of 
slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of 
life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll, was of a different 
order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually 
to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordi- 
nate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed 
the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which 
Jekyll w^as now fallen, and he resented the dislike with 
which he was himself regarded. Hence the apelike 
tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand 
blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the 
letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and 
indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would 
long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in 
the ruin. But his love of life is wonderful; I go further: 
I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, 
when I recall the abjection and passion of this attach- 
ment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut 
him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him. 

It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong 
this description; no one has ever suffered such torments, 
let that suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought — 
no, not alleviation — but a certain callousness of soul, a 



456 SELECTIONS FROM STEVENSON 

certain acquiescence of despair; and my punishment 
might have gone on for years, but for the last calamity 
which has now fallen, and which has finally severed me 
from my own face and nature. My provision of the 
salt, which had never been renewed since the date of 
the first experiment, began to run low. I sent out for a 
fresh supply, and mixed the draught; the ebullition fol- 
lowed, and the first change of colour, not the second; I 
drank it and it was without efficiency. You will learn 
from Poole how I have had London ransacked; it was 
in vain; and I am now persuaded that my first supply 
was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity 
which lent eflficacy to the draught. 

About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this 
statement under the influence of the last of the old 
powders. This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, 
that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his 
own face (now how sadly altered !) in the glass. Nor must 
I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my 
narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been 
by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. 
Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing 
it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall 
have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful sel- 
fishness and circumscription to the moment will prob- 
ably save it once again from the action of his apelike 
spite. And indeed the doom that is closing on us both, 
has already changed and crushed him. Half an hour 
from now, when I shall again and forever reindue that 
hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering 
and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most 
strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up 
and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give 
ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the 
scaffold ? or will he find courage to release himself at the 



DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 457 

last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my 
true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another 
than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and 
proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that 
unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end. 



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